So, Jim Goad wrote the be-all and end-all article about the teachers in Wisconsin and it made America’s resident Marxist very mad so he fought back. Then he got pounded….

This is what Mark Ames is like.

So, Jim Goad wrote the be-all and end-all article about the teachers in Wisconsin and it made America’s resident Marxist very mad so he fought back. Then he got pounded….

The article was for Taki’s Mag and it was the only one I’ve read about the protests that actually got down to the nitty gritty. The teachers claim it isn’t about money and they better claim that because they aren’t going to get any sympathy making $100k a year with two months off. Here’s my favorite part…

“So what exactly had Walker proposed that had people stomping hysterically around downtown Madison as if the Ludlow Massacre had just occurred? In order to put a dent in a proposed $3.6-billion budget deficit—which smirking TV she-male Rachel Maddow had falsely reported as a looming budget surplus—the mercilessly brutal despot proposed that government workers contribute 5.8% toward their pension plans and 12.6% toward their healthcare. He also proposed confining their collective-bargaining rights to wages rather than benefits.

That’s it?

Yes. That’s it. That’s all it took to have them wailing like infants.”

Mark Ames’ biggest pet peeves seem to be: racism, classism, and libertarianism. He usually manages to combine all three while blaming the “Kochtopus” for funding them. For example, after reading Goad’s article, Ames goes:

So Jim Goad posts this on Ames’ website The Exiled, but it gets moderated out.

Goad then emails Ames saying he thinks Ames is a good writer but challenging him with the words, “I would bust you like a grape in a public debate.” Ames refuses the challenge and then posts a fake comment pretending to be Jim Goad.

Here’s the fake comment’s opening paragraph:

Hi, my name is Jim Goad. You may remember me from the 1990s. Ah, the 1990s–those were the years, I tell ya! Well anyway, the fact that I’m trolling The eXiled’s comments section tells you all you need to know about how things have been for me since the 90s. You know that ol’ saying “FoxNews is the last refuge of lost talent”? Yup, I sold out to the right. I’m like the Dennis Miller of edgy urban rednecks. Except that Dennis is on Fox, and I sold out just for a blogging gig at Taki. But I believe I can be a Dennis Miller some day–with some hard work, elbow grease, and a lot of Koch rimming practice, Dennis, watch your back!

So, what’ve I been up to, besides beating up chicks and bashing teachers’ unions and trolling The eXiled’s comments section? Thanks for asking! Well, I’m totally into fag-bashing jokes. You know, even though I’m getting old, fag-bashing jokes are still pretty edgy….

So the guy who accuses me of “sucking” and “rimming” the Kochs spins around to accuse me of fag-bashing when I honestly stated he comes off far more effeminate than I expected?

What a rich, nougaty piece of chocolate that is! It’s called “projection,” honey. You toss out the first fag joke, then turn around and accuse me of stooping to fag jokes.

Chew another Adderall and keep reading. When you die of heart failure in 10 years, I’ll volunteer to write the obit.

I showed my wife one of your tweaked-out, squirming, teeth-grinding, charisma-free Dylan Ratigan ramblings. My question to her: “What do you think of this guy?”

“Gay,” she said within a second. No offense intended, but you come off as extremely effeminate, Mark. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe God made you that way. Or maybe it’s your powderpuff background. It’s merely an observation and not a problem for us—but fag jokes apparently are for you, except when you’re the one making them.

Your upbringing is relevant because it shows that your “concern” for the “middle class” and all your “anti-rich” punditry is transparently hollow bullshit. It’s YOUR desperate attempt to appear “authentic.” It’s called “slumming.” You come from, and have always existed in, a place much closer to both the Kochs and George Soros than I ever did. Seems you don’t give a fuck about the lower orders—you just don’t want to be marked, tagged, and bagged as the rich kid you are should a real class war erupt.

And all your pious soapboxing about “racism” rings equally as hollow from someone who only saw a coon in his town when they were shining his shoes. Anti-racism has always been a pet project for white elites trying to assuage their guilt for being the sole descendants of the tiny sliver of whites who were ever actually slaveowners.

A rich boy who grew up in the top percentile economically, who had the cash and time to hop around living in America’s most expensive cities and Prague while claiming he lived in “poverty,” is now posing as a guardian of the middle and working classes against the “wealthy.” Whether or not you already wrote about your hometown in your books (I’ve never read them) doesn’t magically eradicate the fact that you’ve been entirely sheltered your whole life and wouldn’t have a clue what it’s like to be working-class even if the ghost of Emma Goldman walked up and took a shit on your head.

Again…projection. You’ve never been anywhere near working-class or even middle-class, so quit pretending to speak for them.

I didn’t realize they’ve raised the bar for “retarded” so high that it now includes people whose SAT scores exceeded those of the average peckerwood admitted to Harvard in the 1980s. But you wouldn’t know about having to settle for a lesser school because your daddy didn’t have the money, would you? Still, you’re fighting a noble fight, marching and chanting and drum-circling alongside the unions and the oppressed and the “people,” mannnn—so long as they’re nonwhite or rich-white pretenders.

You pose as a “journalist,” yet you freely toss out delusional and unsubstantiated allegations, which is why your Adderall-addled ass got spanked so bad with the TSA article at The Nation.

It’s also why you’re afraid to go one-on-one in a public forum. You couldn’t get away with framing the debate nor tossing out so many straw men. I’m not worth the time to debate publicly, yet somehow I’m worth the time to squeeze out a 1600-word disjointed speed-freak poop while refusing to allow a rebuttal—is that it?

After talking with Jim, he says that Ames’s rant “strongly suggests permanent amphetamine damage” and “at the very minimum makes use of half of all known logical fallacies.” He says Ames acted as if Goad’s only point was that Ames was a rich kid, but that point was only incidental to his open challenge to debate the Wisconsin situation and was only meant to question Ames’s authority on working-class issues. Ames loves calling everyone out of touch with the black working class but the median income in his hometown is $138,000 and the percentage of blacks there is less than a half of a percent. Goad, on the other hand, has never had any money and lives in an area that is so black, the neighbors call him Snowflake.

Ames’s rant definitely seems speed-induced. It begins with the false assumption that Goad’s entire career has been nothing more than an attempt to cultivate a pop-culture image and then runs like a crazy tweaker with that fallacy. Ames apparently doesn’t even have the honor to consider that, whether he agrees with it or not, Goad might sincerely be trying to make a point or two in his writing. And anyone who knows Jim also knows he never “parties” or “hangs out” with anyone, then or now, rich or poor, hipster or not.

Goad also says the most bizarre part is that Ames insinuates that the last thing Goad really wants to do is debate his stance on the Wisconsin teachers’ situation, when it’s the only reason he offered to debate Ames in the first place. He calls Ames “a delusional rich-boy speedfreak punk and talking African Grey Parrot for the Frankfurt School” who hasn’t bothered to refute a single point in Goad’s original article, “possibly because it makes Ames’s GE-owned bulldyke MSNBC co-pundit Rachel Maddow look bad,” seeing as it nails her in an outright mistake.

PS: As we speak, Mr. Goad is researching the Koch brothers vis-à-vis George Soros. It will be published next Tuesday on takimag.com. He still is willing to debate his article’s points with anyone but now says Ames “probably has too much of a lisp to make a good debater.”

The thing about this debate is while the public union poeple ARE getting unfair benfits and pensions (way more than the private sector not to mention the millions of Americans who are out of work much less worrying about benefits) they ARE teachers.

So democrats are kind of getting behind it in a relatively lackluster sort of fashion because they know so many people are broke and republicans are bashing it in a lackluster sort of manner because it’s teachers and people feel bad bashing teachers.

If it weren’t for the recession there would be more support for the unions but I think they will lose here.

Fag-bashing and lisp-hating aside, teachers have to continue their own education throughout their entire career, deal with the whopping horseshit of a policy that No Child Left Behind has proven to be, and do it with a smile. They deserve their pension and benefits. The only thing that is more questionable is their tenure. It’s hardly in the best interest of students to have some washed-up talentless goon at the head of the room when he/she should have been taken out to pasture years ago. Any other profession would require that you stay effective, or get out.

LOL @ Goad, a conservatarian who “has never had any money” and has to tell us that he did OK on a multiple choice test 20some years ago to seem smart. Credentials!

Ames should debate Goad with his friends Fred Phelps and some teenage Stormfront commenters. I’m confident Goad will be able to accurately determine everyone’s substance abuse issues and sexual orientation before he even meets them.

“So what exactly had Walker proposed that had people stomping hysterically around downtown Madison as if the Ludlow Massacre had just occurred? In order to put a dent in a proposed $3.6-billion budget deficit—which smirking TV she-male Rachel Maddow had falsely reported as a looming budget surplus—the mercilessly brutal despot proposed that government workers contribute 5.8% toward their pension plans and 12.6% toward their healthcare. He also proposed confining their collective-bargaining rights to wages rather than benefits.
That’s it?
Yes. That’s it. That’s all it took to have them wailing like infants.”

that’s not true. they agreed to all of the financial cuts but asked that collective bargaining rights be left on the table. governer still said no. say what?

this isn’t about money; it’s about union busting. anybody making under a quarter of a million a year who is against the unions on this is a self-loathing imbecile, pure and simple.

Can everyone stop talking about this “union” like it’s a bunch of guys in hard hats trying to keep kids out of coal mines? They are the most powerful union in the world. They have more lobbyists ON BOTH SIDES than all other lobbyists COMBINED – yes that includes the tobacco lobbyists.

Where in America do teachers routinely make $100K? The average is much closer to $50k, plus they need a masters degree and lifelong continuing education out of their own pocket. This issue is only about destroying unions because they are against working people, which is who republicans are always against.

They don’t. The 100k figure is their salary combined with their benefits and called their salary. It’s simply a dishonest debate tactic used buy people looking to paint school teachers as some kind of liberal elite living the high life off the tax payers. I’ve never met anyone who combined their benefits into their salary and called it their pay but then I don’t usually have extended conversations with dishonest people who are desperately trying to win debates.

“They don’t. The 100k figure is their salary combined with their benefits and called their salary. It’s simply a dishonest debate tactic used buy people looking to paint school teachers as some kind of liberal elite living the high life off the tax payers. I’ve never met anyone who combined their benefits into their salary and called it their pay but then I don’t usually have extended conversations with dishonest people who are desperately trying to win debates”

So what are you trying to say exactly? Salary, pension, and benefits for public union members are all paid for by taxpayers. Why shouldn’t these three parts be taken as a whole? People in the private sector generally have to pay for all three, in addition to being saddled with the expense of supporting every public union turd in sight.

“anybody making under a quarter of a million a year who is against the unions on this is a self-loathing imbecile, pure and simple.”

Go ahead…”

what it refers to, you obtuse nimrod, is the middle class. anyone making under $250,000 a year is considered middle class. meaning, if you fall within that category, and you are cheering on the pols who are attempting to union bust, then you are supporting people whose agenda is in direct opposition to the values of your socioeconomic class.

what you should be saying, as part of the middle class, is something like this: “why should such a small percentage of the population do little work and have billions? those people don’t have to worry about a pension. why do we let their political system and media manipulate us into looking for villains in the retirement plans of our neighbors and friends?”

why are some of you in the position of saying to each other, “you need to give up your standard of living.” “i already did, now you have to!”

the whole concept of looking with suspicion at another person’s income and pension who is also in the same socioeconomic class is flawed. we are not each other’s natural enemies.

wall street screwed the pensions and the people who did so have multi-million dollar golden parachutes and somehow, that’s not what is being discussed here. but making sure a cop or teacher who has lived on a relatively decent income can pay their way after they stop giving to society, that’s what some of you are letting yourselves be convinced is the problem?

Merely asking that the people opposed to how much teachers make give an accurate representation of their place on the totem pole. AFAIK 50K plus benefits is not an income that hoists these people into an elite floating high above the rest of the country.

>>>>People in the private sector generally have to pay for all three,

“Generally” is pretty broad. If you work as a temp or in a starbucks then yeah, you are getting screwed and probably have a reason to think that the teachers are doing better than yourself. Most people I know have 50k jobs with benefits.

At the end of the day I think that attacking teachers on 50k + benefits is a little misguided considering the enormity of some of the other fish out there to fry.

But hey, good luck with that war on the middle class. The corporate elite who have been sucking the life out of them for decades are right there with ya.

LOTSA PEEPS HERE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY really MISUNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE UNIONS. I HAVE TO GO TAKE A CRAP AND AM TOO TIRED TO EXPLAIN IT, BUT SEARCH AROUND. THE truth WILL FIND YOU AND BUY YOU LUNCH.

the Unions would be willing to sit down at the table if they hadn’t been beaten to to a pulp by the free market and reaganomics for the last 30 years. now union membership is a fraction of what it used to be, and as such they have less bargaining power. Understandably have no interest in giving up the power that they do have, especially considering how little the private sector is willing to contribute through reasonable tax bracketing.

listen, if you think state budgets should be balanced by anything other than the grossly wealthy being taxed into only being extremely wealthy, i don’t get it. i understand that Gavin undoubtedly suffers (or benefits, perhaps) from the Self-Made-Man-I-Did-It-So-Fuck-You mentality and Goad’s livelihood is based off of perpetuating by-the-books fiscal conservatism with a sprinkling of Dr. House MD demeanor, but i can’t honestly believe that two well-informed, intelligent guys actually think that the teachers are at fault here.

>>>>>>>the Unions would be willing to sit down at the table if they hadn’t been beaten to to a pulp by the free market and reaganomics for the last 30 years.

True, although NAFTA didn’t help the situation much either.

Make no mistake. This is just one more example of america being turned against itself.
Banks fail, get a taxpayer bailout close to a trillion and somehow america finds a way to form protests and paint signs blaming homeowners.

Bankers take the taxpayer money, reward themselves with fat bonuses in the billions and somehow middle class school teachers end up painted as worthless leeches living the high life on 50k a year + benefits.

The MICs ongoing war on goat herders and their ideas has cost taxpayers a cool trillion and yet no one suggests the possibility that we might want to save ourselves from spending another trillion on the same outcome.

The gap between the rich and the poor has widened considerably in past decades while americans have the gall to ask “where’d all the money go”?

I would use the term divide and conquer here but I truly think the conquering is complete. Money made more money, bought the government and media and is now in position to finish off its host. That Jim “the only true division is class” Goad would join in that plan is a bit strange.

“Where in America do teachers routinely make $100K? The average is much closer to $50k, plus they need a masters degree and lifelong continuing education out of their own pocket. ”

Teacher types keep going to school to get that masters to avoid having to work a hard job. Why weep for them? And they get easy raises and promotions for that continuing education. And Government employees have debt loan forgiveness, they are among the very few that dont have to pay their loans back. Teachers make a lot of money and are constanly whining hat its not enough. At this point,

I think hey have an incredibly inflated idea of their worth, both personal and societal. Along with cops and fire dept., politicians like to include in their ads that they are supported by teachers unions. Since when did we look to teachers as an authority in running government? All you can count on them to support is plans that increase their ranks, pay and spending in their feild. Shit, Id vote for the guy the cops fire and teachers hate.

@’That Jim “the only true division is class” Goad would join in that plan is a bit strange.’

Isn’t it? I mean, it’s a bit “curious” and “suspect,” too, isn’t it? Maybe even “weird,” and “inexplicable,” perhaps? He’s “joining a plan” and “taking sides in a conspiracy” and is, eh, “with the rich” in their fight “against the poor,” because THERE ARE ONLY EVER TWO FUCKING SIDES TO ANY STORY, RIGHT?

This “a bit strange” thing sounds as paranoid as Ames’s verbal hallucination about how it’s “a little curious” that all of a sudden people were protesting the TSA patdowns, like, two weeks after NEW PATDOWN LAWS WENT INTO EFFECT. Why, someone must have been pulling their strings. It couldn’t be that they were suddenly angry because people were suddenly yanking their genitals at airports. That would be too easy of an explanation.

Did you read the Wisconsin article? Goad states it’s “an intra-class war” and suggests it’s possibly an arranged dispute wherein one group of workers is being led to resent another group of workers. He says he takes the side of workers who’ve been getting worse treatment than government workers, so if you want to twist that as an endorsement of the rich, make that leap, Star Traveler.

what keeps getting ignored in all this slick talk about ‘bashing unions’ is that one group of workers, who’ve seen everything taken away, is being told that another group of workers, a tiny minority of protected workers whose inflated wages they have to pay or else go to jail, is suffering. unless you have a dog in that fight, maybe do the nice thing and shut up.

Ohman ohman ohman! Bitch fight between two political writers I both like, this is great. I would totally pay to see this debate. That said, both Goad and Ames have their faults. Ames with his lame antiracism and Goad with his libertarianism.

Gavin, Jim: You’re both smart guys, do you really believe teachers are making 100k a year? Come on. I’m no expert but from speaking to teachers I’ve known it seems one starts at around 28 – 30K a year which is less than I make as a non union, administrative hotel worker. That said, it seems that teachers make larger raises than most other professions, i.e. within a few years they’ll be at 40 – 45K once they’ve proved that they aren’t complete fuck ups. The number 100k annually PLUS BENEFITS says it all. I assume that’s the total cost of benefits factored in to a much smaller annual salary, no?

There is no question that the public education system in the United States is fucked. But the biggest culprits are the administrative bureaucrats who have turned the primary job of teachers from knowledge givers to disciplinarians and made public education all about hitting points on arbitrary tests. Education isn’t sales. It would be much more intelligent and iconoclastic to attack this, which would still go with the libertarian desire to attack public bureaucracy, than attacking teachers unions.

Also, libertarianism is on the up and up politically because it fills a vacuum left by other ideologies which have failed. It has very little to do with how decent a system it is or if it is the best solution to our current problems.

I’m with you guys and the Taki crowd on the need for alternative conservative social attitudes to destroy the heaps of shit created by multiculturalism, antiracism, feminism and therapy culture, but on economic issues you guys are way off.

There’s your $100,000. Goad’s original article cites another source that says Milwaukee teachers make over 100K when benefits are included.

What the pro-gov-union people keep avoiding is that teachers work about 200 days a year. In the private sector, that’s called ‘part-time.’ It’s almost impossible to fire them, even though they’re not raising literate and math-skilled students. How anyone can argue that such a level of job protection might be counterproductive and a performance disincentive seems disingenuous.

I’m a private-sector worker. To me, these teachers sound whiny. I feel as if they’re being wagged in our faces, mostly by media people whose lives are more cushy than the average government or private-sector laborer. Who are you to tell me my feelings aren’t genuine or that I’m just a mind-control robot of the elite?

And again-it’s the regular workers who are paying the bill here. Who are you to tell us we don’t have a right to complain?

Hey old man, I almost feel sorry for you but then realize you’re just a pathetic old guy who lives a completely meaningless life as a wannabe celebrity. The ones I do feel sorry is your son. No telling how fucked up he is having a loser like you as their father. I hope your parents raped you as a child.

The thing everyone is forgetting is that the Union DID agree to the cuts, but then Walker gave huge tax cuts to corporations which hurts the states revenue, making this seem like an attack on workers because obviously the budget wasn’t really in crisis mode if you’re willing to accept lower revenue from corporations. Then there is the sell off of public places to the Koch bros. Btw 90% of teachers DON’T make 100/k a year. The Rightwing in America is EMBARRASSING!

news to me. when did this happen? do you have a source? or are you lying?

“but then Walker gave huge tax cuts to corporations which hurts the states revenue,”

none of those cuts have gone into effect, so it has zero effect on the current budget. even if they had gone into effect, it’s about 170 million or so in order to attract new businesses to the state, who would have been the only ones eligible for those cuts.

maddow the mad cow never mentions the projected $3.6-billion deficit for the next two years. on top of that, there’s 12 billion in unfunded public-workers pensions. nobody who’s screaming in the streets has offered the slightest solution for that $15 billion hole besides “tax the rich.”

that might be a workable solution if the same misguided progressives didn’t insist us having a “global economy,” with “tolerance” just a code word for “global labor pool,” which allows the rich to skip town if you tax them too much. that’s the core of the problem.

step back a minute, take a breath, try to shake off your tribalism, and do the math.

if you want to increase taxes on the rich, you’ll have to insist they also stay in your country and don’t give them the option to ship the jobs elsewhere. once we can agree on that, let’s all hold hands and walk forward. otherwise, your not making sense.

Opening with a salvo of ad hom. You’re a good little goadie!
I hope those straw men you built to beat on are at least making you feel better because they certainly haven’t proven that my use of the word “strange” makes me a paranoid lunatic like ames.

And saying “FUCKING” in all caps really does make you look like a badass so, you know, points for that.

To address the only addressable part of your post……
Of course it’s an intra-class war. The two classes in this case are lower middle and middle.Do you seriously think americas financial problems lie somewhere in the conflict between the middle and lower middle classes?

The 100k figure is their salary combined with their benefits and called their salary. It’s simply a dishonest debate tactic used buy people looking to paint school teachers as some kind of liberal elite living the high life off the tax payers. I’ve never met anyone who combined their benefits into their salary and called it their pay but then I don’t usually have extended conversations with dishonest people who are desperately trying to win debates.”

fuck this this isn’t on topic but anywho….what sort of dude are you gavin you preach a mean anti-censorship rant in the hate article in the vice guide to sex drugs and rock n roll….but meanwhile ive been trying to not have to deal with “comment awaiting moderation” censorship schemes for the last four post attempts….your so on point buddy!!! wow your so cool can you tell me one day this is cool and the next day tell me its gay how fucking bipolar are you dude…..itll be a miracle if this gets on the message board

well I’m pretty well right of center at least economically as I’ve tediously let everyone know over the years, but teachers are kinda small fish. The teachers unions are terrible and on principle I support Walker but I would much rather go after corporatism, the military industrial complex, ie DC/ wall street and the big shebang. So it’s tough to get worked up over this.

“Dur­ing his eight-year tenure in Milwaukee County, Walker nev­er raised prop­erty taxes. He cut the county workforce by 20 per­cent, improved its bond rating and gave back hun­dreds of thou­sands of dollars of his own salary as part of the effort to trim spending.”

There isn’t a single person in the world that doesn’t understand that unions can be problematic and are sometimes wielded like a blunt instrument. But getting worked up over such small fish, as Dragler says above, especially while ignoring more egregious culprits is such a waste of time. It’s like like trying to stop your house from burning down by pissing on the house two doors down.

Everyone seems to be woefully misinformed about teachers’ salaries, etc.

My mom’s a teacher. Her parent’s were teachers. Their parent’s were teachers. And on and on and on.

I hate to break it to you, but there is no Scrooge McDuck-style money vault to my family’s name. In fact, what little concessions my family of educators may have seen have been stripped piecemeal in the last 20 years.

100k? Please. In what perfect world do all the benefits and pay actually add up to that?

Utter horseshit.

My mom’s been teaching (and teaching well; awards and everything) and barely scratches out more than 45k/year while paying more and more each year for benefits while her 401k is blasted away by rich cokeheads thousands of miles and states away.

Also: has our collective memory contracted to the span of a YouTube video? It wasn’t the teachers’ and their ten-hundred-thousand-million-billion dollars a year that broke the country. It was speculators and money-changers, who, from what I can tell, haven’t ‘sacrificed’ a goddamn thing.

And yet we’re afraid of even going after these ‘Quant’ assholes fucking bonuses.

That fag Ames’ speed rant is pretty much accurate – although I hear it’s logically fallacious. Gmac and Goad dream of opportunities like this so they can “raise their profile” and get some time on the auld TV.

So they pull on this string and that fag Ames is all “I’ll argue with you guys in private, but you Koch suckers won’t be getting any exposure.”

The sad/weird truth: Gmac and Goad don’t have Ames’ social grace and don’t have what it takes to be a 2011 talking head. As soon you put a camera in front of either of them, they turn into rebellious 15 year olds. Next.

Gmac just can’t do “adult” shit. At least that old guy let him be The Official Crass Custodian though, eh? Heh.

Looking at the sequence of events way, way up above at the top of this page (unless I’m missing something that came before all of this), it looks like Ames took the first couple of shots, then when Goad responded, Ames feigned disinterest all while pecking out an insanely long explanation for why he was disinterested. Look at that link of his “rebuttal.” That’s someone who’s had a nerve touched but can’t bring himself to admit it.

The idea that this is some ploy for publicity would make sense if Goad had initiated it all. Maybe he did. But that’s not what it looks like here.

I’d never heard of Mark Ames before any of this, but from what I can see, yeah, it’s obvious he’s on speed. He has all the mannerisms. Next time he’s on TV, the only things that will be going through his head are, “Can they hear my lisp? Can they tell I’m on speed? What about the lisp? What about the speed…”

Also, Dylan Rattigan used to host Fast Money on CNBC. I used to watch it everyday and had no idea he had political opinions. He left the show to go to MSNBC (with him left the amazing canterkerous econo-skinhead Jeff Mackey).

But if he’s on TV a lot and people actually found him interesting enough to mention, don’t you think he’d show up on the Google search results a little bit better? YouTube is just proof that he’s on TV a lot rather than proof that anyone cares.

What is this argument about, anyway? Teachers? Workers? What do two guys who write for a living know about work?

Hucksterism is a form of work. Ames is just more successful at it (he’s on TV more). None if it has anything to do with Teachers or unions. Goad doesn’t want to debate Ames, he wants to debate him publicly.

About 5 years ago in that V*** magazine that will get you censored if you mention its name on here, Goad also offered to publicly debate some Portland skinheads. Was that to get on TV, too? I didn’t know SHARP skinheads had such media connections.

I think Goad’s a psychopath, or maybe a sociopath, I never really understood the difference, but anyone who’s followed his career or anything he’s ever said or done could logically conclude he wants to be popular.

He seems a bit like Don Quixote with this debating obsession, but when he keeps challenging people, it sounds like “public” just means “in a neutral forum.” What Ames did with that fake Goad “comment” was what a pussy does. You retweet that someone wishing a guy goes back to prison, then you don’t have the balls to face him? That’s gay.

everyone is missing the fundamental truths about these two ‘adversaries.’ First is that Amy looks like the love child of henry rollins and oliver north, second is that Toad looks like the product of an uholy mating of elmer fudd and popeye.

i think the tv thing is a copout. ames made a couple taunting low blows, then acted like he was being stalked when goad responded. ames is the pussy here. anonymadonna’s right–look at the sequence of events.

“Okay, now I can hear you asking through gritted teeth, ‘But if you’re so smart, Ames, why ain’t you rich?’

Good question. I ask myself that about 150 times a day, and one of the best answers I can come up with is, “Whoever said that there’s a relationship between smarts and wealth?” Maybe if my family wealth came from taxpayer handouts like Megan McArdle’s, I’d be a rich man today. Or if I was born into a filthy rich family. Inherited wealth, and welfare-for-the-rich seem to be the only paths to riches in this country.”

^ that is really an exceptionally silly article. Can they NOT defer their pay to their pension if they want? if not, how is it in the slightest bit dfferent from a pension and as you pointed out it’s all paid by the taxpayer anyway.

is it okay if i’m against the teachers because a volleyball coach with coffee breath and dandruff on his glasses raped me in a broom closet during a pep rally? i don’t know shit about unions and all this other blahblahblah, but i do know that teachers can be pretty unsympathetic characters.

^^if you honestly do not understand the point of the article, wade through the comments. you aren’t the only two not getting it.

main point: it is the employees’ money, their pay, which is being deferred. it is not some extra gift of compensation from taxpayers. it was an agreed upon amount when they started that they are now collecting. the employees are not to blame. if the argument is that they are overpaid, they have already agreed to pay cuts and higher contributions to plans.

more succinctly put, from a commenter: “If the state has done a poor job in following actuarial tables to determine likely lifespans and/or has done a crap job of investing the money, why would you choose to blame the employees?”

1) There’s no money to pay them. Wisconsin’s budget is about 15 bil in the hole.

2) The taxpayers, who never had any say in setting these wages and benefits, are their de facto employers but, unlike most employers, are coerced to pay them their wages and can’t fire them even if they’re egregious fuckups.

3) When did the idea of it being a “gift” become an issue here. It’s part of their compensation. And it’s derived from private-sector workers, who have no say in the matter.

Should I draw a Venn Diagram? Honestly, what part of the “having absolutely no choice in the matter” concept aren’t you grasping?

“what part of “they already agreed to all pay cuts” do you not honestly get?”

All you’ve done is link to one article that says one Senator says they’re willing. That’s a lot less substantial to “they already agreed to all pay cuts.” Show me a statement from the union, and I’ll be more persuaded.

“His battle with Mr. Walker is the toughest fight of Mr. Beil’s career. Already, the union has agreed to Mr. Walker’s demands to have public employees pay more toward their pensions and health coverage, translating into a 7 percent cut in pay.

Those concessions drew a moment of gloating from Mr. Walker at a Monday news conference. “That’s an interesting development, because a week ago they said that’s not acceptable,” he said.

Mr. Walker says passing his “budget repair” bill will give the state, cities and school districts the flexibility they need to cut costs while minimizing layoffs, not just this year, but in future ones, too.

“It sets the table to make sure we can balance the $3.6 billion budget we face,” he said Monday. “On top of that, we need to make sure that we are giving local governments the tools they need to balance their budgets.”

Mr. Walker has made no secret that he believes Mr. Beil and his parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has 68,000 members in Wisconsin, are obstacles to necessary change.

Back in December, before taking office, Mr. Walker lobbied hard to persuade the Legislature to vote down a tentative contract that Mr. Beil had negotiated, saying it did not save enough money despite its two-year wage freeze.

Mr. Beil hung tough at the time, likening Mr. Walker to “the plantation owner talking to the slaves.”

Speaking of Mr. Beil’s stance then, William Powell Jones, a labor historian at the University of Wisconsin, said: “My sense is his position was, ‘We’re in a position of power. We don’t negotiate.’ It’s certainly not the kind of thing to make an anti-union public sympathetic to the union movement.”

With the nation watching, Mr. Beil reversed course last week and accepted Mr. Walker’s demand that public employees pay 5.8 percent of their salaries toward their pensions and double their contributions toward health coverage. Union leaders said that since they had now met the governor halfway, he should compromise by dropping his plan to curb bargaining rights.

But Mr. Walker has held firm. For his part, Mr. Beil said his union would never agree to the bargaining limits.”

Imagine dedicating your life to espousing a philosophy, the entire of purpose of which, is to make sure you have another few thousand dollars at your disposal at the end of every year? And then doing that at the detriment of all sense of decency and human compassion? That would be weird.

And Ames’s eXile found Jim Goad interesting enough to steal graphics from his ANSWER Me! magazine and claim them as their own. He lifted ANSWER Me!’s “Your Mother is a Whore” graphic and used it for one of their covers.

Look man, I don’t really give a fuck about ad hominem attacks – I’m doing homework. I wasn’t saying he was defending his article to gte on TV. He’s defending his article because he wants to defend it against a guy who’s on TV.

According to Gmac, if somebody says something you don’t like, a quick google image search is sufficient to completely disregard them forever. See above: “This is what Ames is like.”

Regarding Jim, Xposing Toy Chumps obliterated about 95% of his credibility points. After reading all that shit, any attacks – both ad hominem and ad rem – are cruel.

An aside: I liked Jim’s article about the guy from Wikileaks. It was funny and actually got better towards the end rather than just fizzle out like most of his stuff. The main problem with New Jim is that he feels the need to tell you that he’s researched the article he’s writing in about 80% of the articles he writes. He should stop doing that.

>>>>>>>…so saith the one who seemed to think “smashing a chicks face in” 13 years ago was deeply relevant to the matter at hand.

Considering that at that point the matter at hand was “oh shit it’s on! goad vs. ames fight!” my comment and point was 100% relevant. The point being that JG seems to have a habit of picking easy targets to beat on. His books indicate that he is capable of much more than this recent kurt and courtney style sniping at anyone who would dare to question him. From here he appears to be fighting his way into a ditch.

>>>>>>tell me—is hypocrisy hard-wired into the leftist mindset?
Not sure this pro death penalty, anti obama, anti multiculturalism (I could go on and on) “leftist” is the one to ask. Perhaps you find the honesty of cock sucking, meth snorting, anti gay/drug republicans and evangelicals more acceptable?

Now that the irrelevant stuff is once again cleared up, can we can move onto addressing the core of this issue?
So for the second time. Can you (or anyone for that matter) tell me how this conflict between the middle and lower middle classes is going to solve americas financial problems? To me this is classic crabs in a barrel and no one wants to address the people who own the barrel.*

* While tempting I know, “you’re a hypocrite” is not an acceptable answer to this question.

“The point being that JG seems to have a habit of picking easy targets to beat on. ”

I can see your point. It’s mean and cruel and easy to criticize workers who enjoy the sort of perks and wages and security that private-sector workers haven’t known since the 1970s. It’s almost predatory. It’s like kicking a puppy.

“His books indicate that he is capable of much more than this recent kurt and courtney style sniping at anyone who would dare to question him. ”

The dude used to threaten to murder people who criticized ANSWER Me! He’s always been that way.

I can see your point. It’s mean and cruel and easy to criticize workers who enjoy the sort of perks and wages and security that private-sector workers haven’t known since the 1970s. It’s almost predatory. It’s like kicking a puppy.<<<

I was referring to the conflict with ames. Apologies for not making that clear enough.

As to your point. There is no denying that private sector employees have been getting screwed harder and harder since the 70s but again I would ask, how is forcing lower pay and no benefits on middle class workers going to address americas larger financial problems?
I would think that demanding better pay and benefits from those who have taken it away would be a more productive fight to take on.

“As to your point. There is no denying that private sector employees have been getting screwed harder and harder since the 70s but again I would ask, how is forcing lower pay and no benefits on middle class workers going to address americas larger financial problems?
I would think that demanding better pay and benefits from those who have taken it away would be a more productive fight to take on.”

That makes a lot of sense.

I think the reason is that its not controversial or provocative enough to write about that issue amongst these types…… if it were edgy and daring and were more a part of the internet tough-guy-arguer shtick maybe

“I would think that demanding better pay and benefits from those who have taken it away would be a more productive fight to take on.”

i would think you don’t know basic arithmetic. if you sincerely want a better standard of living for workers, time to ease up on the fake “tolerance” and “globalism” and especially the America-bashing and enforce some serious economic protectionism. some of your heroes such as Clinton allowed things such as NAFTA to enable “the rich” to take the jobs elsewhere if they didn’t like the situation here.

i’ve already posted it, but read it more slowly this time:

“that might be a workable solution if the same misguided progressives didn’t insist us having a “global economy,” with “tolerance” just a code word for “global labor pool,” which allows the rich to skip town if you tax them too much. that’s the core of the problem.

step back a minute, take a breath, try to shake off your tribalism, and do the math.

if you want to increase taxes on the rich, you’ll have to insist they also stay in your country and don’t give them the option to ship the jobs elsewhere. once we can agree on that, let’s all hold hands and walk forward. otherwise, you’re not making sense.”

“The 100k figure is their salary combined with their benefits and called their salary. It’s simply a dishonest debate tactic used buy people looking to paint school teachers as some kind of liberal elite living the high life off the tax payers. I’ve never met anyone who combined their benefits into their salary and called it their pay…”

Gavin, Goad: If you guys want to attack liberal elites living off the backs off working Americans and promoting shit, try the National Endowment for the Arts.

@popfop I was quoting someone else, although I agree with that sentiment. My point was, you shouldn’t be fighting with the guy at the poker table who just won a small pot off of you, you should be fighting the casino.

“My point was, you shouldn’t be fighting with the guy at the poker table who just won a small pot off of you, you should be fighting the casino.”

Noble, but extremely simple-minded and impractical. How do you propose to do that in this wonderful new global economy when the casino owners can go to Malaysia and pay everyone a dollar a day? Any practical suggestions beyond “it’s the right thing” and “we shouldn’t encourage man’s inhumanity to man”?

And why do you keep avoiding that fact that one gambler has to pay for the other one’s chips?

Jim goad wouldn’t even have a career right now if gavin hadn’t masturbated to him as a teenager. Honestly, he is pathetic. His whole racial shock bit tactics might have worked 20 years ago, but now it’s just sad. “Look at me fighting the establishment,” I can see him saying to himself in his trailer. Fact of the matter is, no one cares. While Ames is annoying, at least he is a real writer with real credentials. Goad is a nobody. Oh wait, we’re supposed to respect Goad because he grew up poor and does yard work and is a real man? Please. He’s so obsessed with reminding us about these facts it’s absurd. He’s like some college freshman lacking self awareness trying to impress a rich girl. WE GET IT JIM. YOU GREW UP POOR. CONGRATULATIONS. Maybe you should see a psychologist and whine about it there so we can stop reading you whining about it in every article you write.

@anonymissus: yes yes you are so so right, there’s no hope for protectionist reform. You dimwittedly argue that intra-middle class cannibalism is now what’s for dinner. So to celebrate the new menu, let’s all first lunch on your so eagerly surrendered gonads. Hmm…tastes like pussy.

I like Goads articles at takimag and if you are a big zine person certainly Answer Me was a big deal. I’ve never actually read it but stuff like that and Rollerderby certainly were influential to alot of people. I liked Rollerderby. What is the worth of the pre internet zine universe? very subjective.

My only beef with Goad is that he blocked me from following him on Twitter. Now, there is nothing wrong with that on its face as I AM a pretty irritating person however, it was for an argument in which I was espousing what I thought were pretty Goad-friendly points about how our israel centric foreign policy was dooming us to intervention and stuff. Like 8 months later he wrote an article for takimag talking about how the US should get out of there! and of course gavin wrote the same article a few months later.

I’m not suggesting they got isolationism/ non interventionism from ME, I’m not a writer and takimag has TONS of articles along those same lines. It’s just like well, maybe go back and be like “you had a point there, Dragler”

“Noble, but extremely simple-minded and impractical. How do you propose to do that in this wonderful new global economy when the casino owners can go to Malaysia and pay everyone a dollar a day? Any practical suggestions beyond “it’s the right thing” and “we shouldn’t encourage man’s inhumanity to man”?”

with courage and decency, you fucking disingenuous coward. open your mouth and start talking. if we raise our voice, others will raise their voices. as long as we do nothing but fight each other, we ensure only one thing: we are acting like we deserve to be treated this way and will continue to be treated this way. who cares if we win? it’s long past time to start speaking up to the ones who created this.

um.. you are posting as “anonymous” on a website that probably only has a few hundred devoted readers. if goad is a nobody..who the fuck are you? he writes great articles and has numerous publications. and his upbringing is relevant, because assholes like ames and keith olberman pretend to be speaking for people like him or like us. a piece of shit like you cant bring yourself to argue his points, or even to post your own name, or some work you have done. you’re just a hater with no life.

and if no one cared, why even bother posting your own opinion? go suck an egg.

^^use fucking google. it’s not that hard to find a multitutde of ways that people are already doing it. but you won’t. you’re a disingenuous troll. oh, if only someone could lay out the perfect plan, surely you’d finally jump on board.

just keep sticking your thumbs up your ass, you willfully ignorant toad, and croaking about how things can never change no matter what and how every idea presented to effect change is dumb and won’t work.

@anonymouse : What part of “intelligent protectionism” and “economic justice” do you not understand? Both are reasonably attainable, there’s a multitude of successful historic precedents. You lack knowledgeable perspective. Have you so surrendered your capacity for reason that you insist for ersatz darwinism against your own class interest?

How is it in our “class interest” to pay for obscene benefits for unfireable mediocre people (who are mediocre because they have no incentive to be better, quite the contrary) who work 9 months a year while we starve?

@dragler, wow, you are entirely bonkers. How are decent pay and benefits for streetsweepers your enemy, while top 1% us population owns 90% of the wealth? You are like a field slave who envies the house slave because house slaves get fancy shoes.

streetsweepers??? I assume you mean people how drive street sweepers like King of all Blacks from the Howard Stern show. They make alot of money and get insane benefits, more than the market would ordinarily compensate such a skill set.

The state has a budget shortfall, they have to make it up. The teachers unions have been ripe for this sort of thing for a long long time. The idea of taking money from productive people to keep in place a status quo that is barely functioning is ridiculous.

If you don’t like the top 1% stop buying their products. Don’t drink Coke or buy microsoft or use google. I can’t help it if people like that stuff and it makes them money.

“you are like a field slave who envies the house slave because house slaves get fancy shoes.”

I like this analogy.

Partly because I’m really racist, but it also precisely captures the state of conflict we’re being led into to distract us from the real villains here: the slave owners.

To the guy complaining about the corporations being able to take their jobs overseas, I agree that that is part of the problem. Unfortunately we live in a culture that glorifies capitalistic competition over literally everything else, besides maybe beauty, the ability to move a sports-ball around efficiently, and the ability to kill shit up real good.

I think it would be a good start if we could close a lot of the tax loopholes that enable/encourage giant corporations to manufacture their goods outside of the country. I don’t know how to specifically do this because I am a fucking retard on the internet, but it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility pie in the sky dreaming that American companies would give jobs to Americans at a decent wage.

Maybe those corporations should pay taxes too. That might be a nice start. Like this article below suggests, many of them, like Bank of America and Exxon Mobile pay nothing.

“Indeed, as politicians are asking ordinary Americans to sacrifice their education, their health, their labor rights, and their wellbeing to tackle budget deficits, some of the world’s richest multinational corporations are getting away with shirking their responsibility and paying nothing. ThinkProgress has assembled a short but far from comprehensive list of these tax dodgers — corporations which have rigged the tax system to their advantage so they can reap huge profits and avoid paying taxes…”

Start there and fix that. There’s my solution.

Yeah but teachers — the people literally responsible for the future of our country — get a longer vacation than I do! Let’s drag them down first.

jumpin jehosephat: because that 1% of the population doesnt take it from taxpayers. they earn it in the marketplace, employ everyone else, invest it in more business, donate vast sums to charity. also, they can fail. if they do a bad job, and fail to satisfy consumers-they go under. teachers, on the other hand, do a shitty job and everyone knows it.

while i would agree that attacking teacher benefits to curtail defecit spending is the wrong place to cut (better to cut military and welfare imo) the fact is this:we’re in deep shit, and everyone is going to have to sacrifice a bit. teachers have it better than most private sector employees. so they should stop complaining about their poor treatment.

you’re kidding, right? the top 1% doesn’t take it from taxpayers? how about literally with the bank bailouts recently? how about the entire system of laws we have designed to make it easier for them to avoid paying taxes in the first place?

the idea of the self made man, or self made company is a myth. no one, including “genius” inventors like bill gates or mark zuckerberg or whoever invented the next thing, would be able to make their billions off their great invention if it weren’t for the predatory capitalism system enabled by the people who we supposedly elect to represent the people’s best interests.

anonymous: as a libertarian i am completley opposed to all goverment subsidies. american system is obviously completely broken. but at the end of the day, walmart has to make products consumers like-or they get fired. they get their money by people buying their products out of their own volition. teachers on the other hand…

richest already pay almost all of the income tax. i dont really understand your point about bill gates…so since capitalism allowed them to make billions and revolutionize the way the entire world interacts with each other..this is bad?

well besides an out and out revolution then how is Wisconsin supposed to balance this budget?

There is no way to do it other than this. Raising taxes in the middle of a recession is silly and introduces us to the lowest on the totem pole: those who rely on charity. They would and do suffer when taxes on the rich are raised.

So you can say oh who do you want to take a cut more rich fatcats or teachers. well who do you want to have to take a cut a guy who is doing more or less fine or someone who is literally starving?

Also I read an article by Luke O Neil in the newspaper the other day that was like the most normal article I’ve ever read. it was like ” when you’re on the go here are some sporty tips to save time! person 1. “I do this with my something so I can go right to the thing instead of having to …wait in line or something” It was probably heplful I certainly wouldn’t know about having too many things to do though.

i was replying to your statement that the top 1% don’t get money from taxpayers. far too many people actually believe that.

in terms of people buying their shit of their own volition: they were able, with the help of govt subsidies, to force smaller businesses out of business and now, in many impoverished areas, they have a monopoly.

david cay johnston is perfect. That guy chronicles with thick books and details down to a gnat’s ass just exactly how the corrupt national structures strip wealth from you deranged rightist workers like dragler et al, and deposit it in the bank accounts of the overlords you so fervently defend/worship.

ALSO IT’S NOT ABOU BANCING THIS BUDGET. THE UNIONS AGREED TO TAKE THE FINANCIAL HITS LAST WEEK. THE GOVERNOR IS HOLDING OUT FOR ENDING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. THAT’S WHAT THE SHOWDOWN IS ABOUT NOW, IT’S NOT ABOUT BALANCING THIS PARTICULAR BUDGET ANYMORE, IT’S ABOUT THE MUCH LARGER QUESTION OF LABOR RIGHTS OVERALL. This was posted as a public.serice, just clarifying the Wisconsin situation

@Dragler: “Raising taxes in the middle of a recession is silly and introduces us to the lowest on the totem pole: those who rely on charity. They would and do suffer when taxes on the rich are raised.”

Yes, those who are forced to rely on charity must continue to do so and that structure must be preserved. Like a pauper dying of thirst must rely on a trickling overflow of the wealthy’s drink rather than attempt to seize the cup himself.

look, if you raise taxes on the wealthy the government is not going to take that money and donate as much or more to charity. Thats why the head of like charities united or something was lobbying to stop the bush tax cits from expiring.

You can say oh the unfairness of the current system insures that these poeple will be starving, but the fact is rasing taxes now will have that effect and that is not humane.

The main reason not to raise tax cuts in a recession is not that though. Its because it doesn’t help the economy and is more apt to really hurt it.

the unemployment rate is 10 percent. whatever happens to the budget if you raise taxes that rate is going to go up not down if money at any level is drawn out of the economy via taxation.

historically this is not going to be loooked at as a time where we raised taxes it is going to be one where we cut spending. That’s mah macro prediction.

no, that’s what you are infering from what i’ve written. my main point continues to be exposing the right’s false narrative. there is nothing inherently wrong with govt. intervention in the workplace. what is wrong is the super-rich’s control of the political narrative. we’ve got to club the rhetoric over the head and get the truth out there. then, from a much more informed place, people can hopefully make better decisions (with their grubby little voting fingers), and feel braver about speaking up regarding things like union’s rights, corporate subsidies and bailouts, etc. it is impossible to strive for any semblance of fairness in a society where the truth is so distorted and facts obscured to such a degree.

If you want to talk about a false narrative, hoooo-boy is that one. Did MSNBC laser-beam the same meme in all your minds simultaneously?

Name one worshipful comment toward the rich in the entire thread. Only one. “Oh, OK, not literally ‘worshipping’ them, but by supporting certain policies, you’re, eh, worshiping them even if you’re not worshiping them, so go ahead and lick their boots, you sick slave,” etc.

For fuck’s sake. S&M psychosis from the side of the aisle who clamors for civility. Try, for once, to take people at their word. Because if you’re unable to do that with others, it suggests you’re untrustworthy yourself.

Jesus Christ why do you people care about all this shit? Everybody knows you can’t do anything about anything in America. All you can is vote democrat or republican. We are all going to ride this fucking whale wherever it goes and hopefully I won’t be one of the ones that gets fucked over.

deranged-ler’s opinions are generally for shit. Check out a gem of his from a few months ago where he argued that “if poor workers in southeast Asia donlt like how little they are paid, they should just move to where the pay is better.”

My jaw really hit the floor when i read that one. I mean, I realize his mom brings mac n cheese to him in his basement bedroom, but wow, is he really that sheltered that he doesn’t know that some people’s mom’s really can’t afford fucking drinking water, much less bring her failure be-snuggied basement brat his widdle mac n cheesey-weezy?

Best Dragler quote ever: “We probably could have made it through the 20th century with just the coast guard and it would have been wonderful if other nations had followed suit which they may well have done.”

“Jesus Christ why do you people care about all this shit? Everybody knows you can’t do anything about anything in America. All you can is vote democrat or republican. We are all going to ride this fucking whale wherever it goes and hopefully I won’t be one of the ones that gets fucked over.”

LOL. Yeah, that’s how I feel pretty much when I don’t feel like getting my back up on the internet. Fuck it.

if the supreme court has granted civil rights of personhood to corporations via especially citizen’s united, then dragler’s defense of google, microsoft, etc constitutes defense of an enormously powerful individual. an individual who has enormous lordlike wealth power over a stuck peasant. So the overlord imagery is becoming less and less a rhetorical overreach (yes I at last moment concede of rhetorical overreach on that one point, but for perhaps not much longer) and more descriptive of real relations.

And people are trying to argue that the Field Negroes, who are being forced to break off what little cornbread they have left and give it to the already-fatter House Negroes, is somehow sign of their cold-heartedness?

That’s dumb as shit. Obviously the House Negroes are the ones bending to authority here, and at the Field Negroes’ expense.

yeah, but the public unions are playhouse slaves for massa’s precious daughter Belle. The real Big House negro is unca Clarence “Pork Shoulder” Thomas cause he’s got the power of imprisonment behind him.

Huh, how ’bout that? For an MSNBC liberal, Mark Ames sure enjoys using the n-word: http://j.mp/gKHTUN. (Um, maybe it’s cuz Ames is actually an aging misogynistic, racist Republican frat boy who is only pretending to be a liberal to further his media career? Because at MSNBC they’re rich and dumb enough to buy anything. Paying Mark Ames proves that.)

You must not have been following the state of the global economy. There isn’t any money dumbass. It’s all in China and/or the global financial system. The only real advantage this country has anymore is the fact that we all speak English. Other than that, our labor force (especially our unskilled labor force) has very little in the way of desirable skills. Unions aren’t the answer to the challenges our POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETY faces.

Why is it luke and arv STILL have the most facile grasp on subjects like this? OK, in Arv’s case I get it, he’s a helpless little twink (and a moron to boot). And Luke gets his information from outlets like Huffingtonpost.
Anyway I digress:
Federal money is consistently used as a means to expand government. This money generates limited economic growth (compared to private capital) because the federal government does not give out money to make money. Congressmen give out money to make voters more loyal. They don’t care about the debt they’ve generated because they don’t answer to it. They think about the fact that the AFT is going to pour thousands (or millions) of dollars into their political machine. Neither party (as a collective body) really gives much of a sh*t about debt. Which is why Republicans give tax cuts to billionaires and corporations while Democrats rain money on their devoted constituents (unions, urban poor, academics).

“Globalization” is not going anywhere. The internet makes this especially true. The only way to stop this kind of thing (global commerce) is to implement global dictatorial control. Over all commerce. You can say naive things like, “If we all raise our voices as one blah blah blah.” Have you stopped to think about what happens when we all “start over” and everyone’s now “equal?” That’s right, people will try to find a way to provide for their kids by stockpiling resources, knowledge and wealth. It’s hardwired. Meanwhile you have a new overlord but instead of being “corporate” it’s governmental. You want a bunch of political dicks being the sole arbiter of what’s what? Not to mention the fact that millions (hundreds of millions?) of people will die in the run up to such a global government.

Like it or not, the government NEEDS corporations in order to generate economic activity (so that its citizens have food, shelter, bling, and the gov’t has money to run its various programs). At a certain point, when you tax them “too much” the megacorps will just set up shop where they don’t have to pay taxes at the rate they currently do. The idea of “consent of the governed” is a very real idea that applies to corporate entities.

With the amount of money the federal government has printed these past 3 years the rich have already been taxed an obscene amount of money. It’s called inflation tax and it affects everyone. It often leads to market instability. Not all “rich people” are responsible for the financial collapse. Guess who was? I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t the “rich” people who make $250,000 a year busting their ass (while paying the salary, benefits and pensions of public employees). It was the unholy alliance between the federal govt. (fannie, freddie and HUD) and Wall Street (with their ridiculous financial instruments). The Fed Reserve had a pretty strong hand in all this too.

You keep talking about the “predatory capitalism system.” First of all, our economy isn’t purely capitalistic nor is it purely socialistic (or whatever iteration of top-down control one is trying to describe). We have a mixed economy and roughly 1/3 to 4/10 of the GDP is in the PUBLIC sector.
We haven’t experience anything approaching laissez-faire capitalism for 80+ years bro. The idea of “predatory” anything is kind of redundant as it pertains to human nature and existence in general. Seriously, when I say your grasp on this issue is “facile” it really doesn’t even begin to paint the picture since you seem to think we’re living in the old timey days where all these capitalists are running around like the monopoly guy with their top hats while they rape the indentured servant, hang a black man and blacken an 8 year old’s lungs.

I cannot believe that in this golden age, an era of access to nearly infinite amounts of information, people STILL fall for the false paradigms of “corporation vs. government” or “republican vs. democrat” or “capitalism vs. socialism as a way to explain why things are so starkly black-white and have to be done “this way” rather than “that way.”
Actually I lied, I understand why people think this way: it’s because of the shitty, broken educational system, the shitty teachers and their ridiculously shitty protection racket. Time to blow that shit up son.

“It was the unholy alliance between the federal govt. (fannie, freddie and HUD) and Wall Street (with their ridiculous financial instruments). The Fed Reserve had a pretty strong hand in all this too.”

“you seem to think we’re living in the old timey days where all these capitalists are running around like the monopoly guy with their top hats while they rape the indentured servant, hang a black man and blacken an 8 year old’s lungs.”

massive street cred on the use of “bro.” your credibility in the matter-at-hand, however, is nothing but shiny shit. oh, i’m sure you’ll disagree with the following but that don’t mean he’s wrong, bro-mangoo:

I cannot believe that in this golden age, an era of access to nearly infinite amounts of information, people STILL fall for the false paradigms of “corporation vs. government” or “republican vs. democrat” or “capitalism vs. socialism as a way to explain why things are so starkly black-white and have to be done “this way” rather than “that way.”
Actually I lied, I understand why people think this way: it’s because of the shitty, broken educational system, the shitty teachers and their ridiculously shitty protection racket. Time to blow that shit up son.<<<<

Using black and white terms to explain why idiots think in black and white terms.

“Koch Industries, and oligarchs like them, have most recently started to manipulate the political agenda in Wisconsin. Governor Walker’s union-busting budget plan contains a clause that went nearly un-noticed. This clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process. The Koch’s have helped to fuel the unrest in Wisconsin and the drive behind the bill to eliminate the collective bargaining power of unions in a bid to gain a monopoly over the state’s power supplies.”

it’s not yet entirely true that”corporations vs government is false paradigm” . Granted wall street and oil have captured much govt, but there’s still a perceptible, if lessening, difference, gov’t may yet succeed in beating back the corps toward public good. Teddy Roosevelt did it and so did FDR.

I love how McInnes seems to conveniently forget that he made his money through a magazine that was started with government funding. Oh, and Taki, the founder of that bastion of libertarianism Taki’s Mag that originally published Goad’s article, inherited his money from his father. So obviously these are two guy we should be listening to about how all it takes to make it in this world is a little hard work.

I know bitching about teachers’ salaries makes some guys feel like wild libertarian anarchists and everything, but bringing up that $100K stat as evidence exposes you as too ignorant to have an opinion.

I think Ames rules generally. But I am also glad that the USA is crushing the last of their unions. The lower the pay and benefits for teachers the fewer good ones will join the profession and the USA’s kids will grow up even dumber and more illiterate than before.
I support Gov. Walker for the same reason I supported the second term of Bush2. More crazyness and slashing/austerity etc. the faster the United States will decline into irrelevance. I look forward to a future where the USA has the geo-political clout that Brazil had 10 years ago. I think that’s about right.

“Oh, and Taki, the founder of that bastion of libertarianism Taki’s Mag that originally published Goad’s article, inherited his money from his father….So obviously these are two guy [sic] we should be listening to about how all it takes to make it in this world is a little hard work.”

Please help me along in trying to understand this new false narrative you propose. Taki inherited money from his father, which means Goad isn’t working-class or something? What? Want to sketch it all out on Glenn Beck’s chalkboard for me so I can connect the dots?

Pinch my ass if I’m dreaming, but the subject seems to be who’s actually closer to the working-class—Goad or Ames, meaning who might actually be closer to this “workers” issue. There’s a secondary topic of Ames taking the first shots then running, but that’s neither here nor there.

Taki didn’t write the article, and Taki’s not claiming to be working-class, is he? Ames’s billionaire overlords at MSNBC don’t write his pro-prole material, either, do they? And where’s the part about “all you need to make it is a little hard work”? Can you point that out, or do most of you just make shit up as you go along if it suits the narrative and protects your feelings?

What Mongoloids most of you are when it comes to discussing these sort of things. So many of these comments are blazing evidence of why public education has failed. Do you even run “logic-check” in MS Word before posting these things?

You can see all the contributors for that election, Republican and Democrat. My, my, you’re saying “lawyers and lobbyists” contributed over $1 million to the Democrat guy and the Kochs contributed $43,000 to the Republican guy, and they “bought” the election? Yes, public education is definitely not allowing these hipsters to live to their full potential. Please, get George Soros on the phone and let’s suppress the facts in this case. Doesn’t fit the script. Doesn’t fit the script…

“Koch Industries donated $43,000 through its political action committee — only $125 short of the maximum allowed from a PAC — to Walker’s gubernatorial election campaign. The donation is Walker’s second highest from a PAC, according to GAB records.”

Keep tryin’, li’l buddy! Holy moly, those links showed that the Kochs contributed other funds to other campaigns besides the gubernatorial election. And those links definitely rule out the possibility that public unions, as well as “lawyers and lobbyists,” also poked their noses into those other campaigns, possibly even at the same rate they outspent the KochsSo if we add up the numbers…ok, shit…

I don’t know who GAB is, but if Mr. Willful Ignoramus Accuser had bothered to click on the link that was already generously provided, he’d see he’s willfully ignoring that three unions made larger PAC contributions to the Democrat than the Kochs did to Walker

This focus on the Kochs is deliberate and misleading. So they work in their self-interest. What a surprise. So do the teachers’ unions. The problem with your theory is that the unions outspent the Kochs by a landslide.

working stiff- my point was that if there weren’t sweatshops in those countries there would be nothing and if they do all the human rights stuff like they did in the marianias island, the companies will just leave. How is that at all advantageous to poor people? You want people to starve so you can feel good about “doing something.”

arv- the United States is a leader around the world and other countries look to us. If we had embraced a less interventionist policy other countries perhaps would have too. It was a parable, really that statement but also literally true.

Actually, Nicholas Kristof, a pretty far leftist, who thinks we don’t do enough for the poor, morosely approves of sweatshops as the only means for third world people to get paid.

And on Ames and Goad, it seems to be Ame’s website the exiled’s mo is to edit comments they don’t like.

It’s on is so appropriate. Observing any discourse in this country is like watching two troglodytes battle it out in the parking lot of a strip club or bar. It’s tawdry, vaguely amusing, but still annoying, and you just wish they’d off each other and spare the rest of us their presence.

The fact that America’s postindustrial, mixed (not capitalist) economy is floundering is an example of the fact that laissez-faire capitalism has failed. But the predatory capitalists are controlling our day to day lives while the little guy (powerless unions like the American Federation of Teachers) are being fucked in the butt. Globalization turns starving people in Asia into well-fed slaves to the capitalist system. We need to keep those jobs in the United States and we need to continue to give teachers unions more leverage so that the level of education in this country continues on its steady upward march.

Adderall or not, Mark Ames’s rant was ten times funnier than Jim Goad’s response. Also, since Jim Goad is factually wrong about the situation in Wisconsin, where public sector unions are having their right to collectively bargain taken away, it’s hard to sympathize with him.

Goad correctly identifies that there is intra-class warfare occurring within this country’s lower middle and lower classes, as public sector unions are recognized as possessing the only good jobs that still exist. However, that should be the impetus for people to push for more unionization (or at least worker control) in the private sector, rather than engaging in some perverse Trotskyist urge to see the last bastion of middle class jobs collapse, leaving only one giant working class and one tiny capitalist class, which Marx predicted would lead to a working class revolution. Goad is implying that that is the outcome he wants to see. Sorry, I can never support those leftists who take pleasure in seeing people’s prospects crumble because it “sharpens the contradictions” and supposedly hastens the coming revolution.

And the idea that this state of affairs is simply “reality” is twisted as well. It’s only reality because we have allowed corporations to run roughshod over the entire world and this country in particular, permitting them the easy choice of uprooting jobs and sending them elsewhere rather than forcing them to find more efficient ways to continue production at home. Look at Germany, which is approaching full employment. Look at the Scandinavian countries, which already have full employment. Those countries managed to nurture the most competitive export manufacturing industries in the world, and have held on to the idea that good, middle class jobs should exist.

Oh, and Norway has more entrepreneurs per capita than any country in the world, so the idea that these kinds of economies stifle initiative is garbage.

Mark Ames may not have made many substantive criticisms about the issues, but he’s closer to being right than Jim Goad. Jim Goad sounds like a bitter old Marxist with baggage.

That quote was meant to be this…
>>>Goad is implying that that is the outcome he wants to see. Sorry, I can never support those leftists who take pleasure in seeing people’s prospects crumble because it “sharpens the contradictions” and supposedly hastens the coming revolution.<<<<

What you wrote:
“Also, since Jim Goad is factually wrong about the situation in Wisconsin, where public sector unions are having their right to collectively bargain taken away, it’s hard to sympathize with him.”

What Goad wrote:
“He also proposed confining their collective-bargaining rights to wages rather than benefits.”

The Goad article was released on the 21st of February, when the unions weren’t negotiating at all. The article about unions agreeing to take the pay cuts but not concede the bargaining rights was published on the 22nd. So at the time the article was published, everything was factually correct.

In fact, Goad’s article mentions that “last week” they were stomping around Madison, and even in the article from February 22 where Walker was informed the unions had offered to accept pay cuts, he said ““That’s an interesting development, because a week ago they said that’s not acceptable.”

impressive walkback derange-ler. You start out in marie antionette’s “let them find another job if they don’t like starvation wages” privy chamber, then you sprint to the bastille where you wave a pitchfork and yell “working stiff wants them to starve!” I guess you CAN have your cake and eat it too, ha. Well it all makes sense inside ur mom’s basement anyhoo. Xxoo

My impression of Goad as an old-school leftist comes from a couple of things written by him, both of which carry old-left resonances: First, his closing paragraph and parting shot in the Taki mag article:

“What’s going on here is an odd sort of intra-class war among the working class. I’m not sure who’s fomenting it, but I know which side I’m on. The world that I hope to see end—SOON—is that cozy little bubble of delusion that leads these teachers to think they have it hard.

Welcome to the real world, teachers.”

He’s basically saying that times are tough all around, and the sooner everyone realizes it, the better.

The second is this statement directed at Ames: “Seems you don’t give a fuck about the lower orders—you just don’t want to be marked, tagged, and bagged as the rich kid you are should a real class war erupt.”

This, again, seems to bear the markings of a traditional Marxist analysis of the mechanics of class conflict: Jobs are replaced by machines or outsourced, leaving society in a state of stark dichotomy between the capitalist class who owns the means of production, a steadily shrinking and disposable proletariat, and then the “reserve army of the unemployed”, ie. everyone else who can’t even get a job. The last two groups are supposed to eventually join forces to overthrow the first group, but only when things get bad enough.

Many Marxists who held to this theory thought that unions could serve the revolution as the headquarters and laboratory of working class dictatorship (if they were strictly Marxist). Otherwise they would be a counter-revolutionary force, creating the image of a capitalism that shared the wealth of production more equitably. Goad seems to resent unions for the latter reason: Their members may claim to be working class, but are actually part of an “aristocracy of labor” that obscures the real class struggle.

The central theory of Jim Goad’s writings on “redneck culture” from what I can tell are that class divisions are more significant than racial divisions: a fundamental pillar of Marxist analysis. He claims that the poor white population of the United States is descended from European serfs, spalpeens and landless laborers, who were exploited after arriving in America. Thus, he claims that rednecks have more in common with black descendents of slaves than they do with other white people. This runs counter to more recent tendencies among cultural Marxists like the Frankfurt school (with whose tradition he lumps in Ames) and Third-Worldist/Maoist/Post-Colonial Marxists, who place a greater emphasis on identity politics.

@Boner Baby:

You’re right, the unions hadn’t acceded to the demands about benefits when Goad wrote the article. But the fact is that they are being asked to suffer for a crisis that they didn’t create, and which won’t be solved by what’s being done to them. My point is that I believe Goad has ideological, rather than rational reasons for disliking unions.

He mentioned it by proxy in linking to a fact-checking report about Rachel Maddow falsely claiming Walker’s tax cuts caused a budget surplus. That “giant hole” was about $170 million. As has been stated perhaps 3000 times on this thread, the actual budget deficit was $3.6 BILLION, which doesn’t even count an unfunded $12 billion in government pensions. So much for the “giant hole” hypothesis.

>>>>>Or the fact that Walker’s policy on unions won’t even fix the budget problems he claims to be tackling

Neither Scott Walker nor JG claimed it would balance the budget, only help to balance it. So, red herring and all.

>>>>>>Oh yeah, and if corporations actually paid their taxes, we wouldn’t be in this mess anyway.

That’s another subject. Should the article also have covered climate change? How about penguins in Antartica? Corporations weren’t rioting in Madison’s streets. It was a news story. The article didn’t say anything for or against corporations.

Nice to see you quoting the Soros front organization Think Progress for your evidence, too. I didn’t even bother to read the link, because taxing corporations is outside the article’s purview—not far outside, but still, let’s be reasonable. I’ve never seen Goadman write a good thing about corporations, though.

As much as I legitimately respect and enjoy your last post re. Goad (and I think it’s a fair/probably accurate assessment of Goad’s perspective) I don’t understand what seems to be a giant blindspot when it comes to understanding globalization’s implications for this country.
Scandinavia and Germany have a completely different population in terms of birth rate, proportion of the labor force about to retire, the kind of labor their workforce performs, bilingualism, Mexicans, etc.
India and China (Asia as a whole) are now in play; resources aren’t entirely limitless, and although I’m not a Malthusian, that pressure created on the US’s unskilled labor force in this country is a very real problem. American companies can go wherever they want. I don’t see how you get around that fact.

Jim . . . you ARE a leftist. If you are “not a leftist”, then you are someone whose ideas would not exist if it weren’t for the intellectual work done by the left – let’s say, right up to the early twentieth century. You can get off the bus before the Frankfurt School or Gramsci (definitely Gramsci, since you don’t believe that middle class intellectuals can be allies of the working class) but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Calling yourself some kind of independent thinker with no ties to the left is totally disingenuous. Your whole intellectual output is based on leftist internationalism.

Look, identity politics and May ’68-style social issue self-righteous bullshit is annoying, the whining leftist emphasis on language is beyond useless, but don’t beat up on liberals just because it’s satisfying. Liberals are what pass for left wing in America. Whose fault is that? It’s the fault of public intellectuals who don’t bother to cut through the bullshit.

Charles, are you the same guy who said you couldn’t sympathize with me because I’m “factually wrong,” then when it was shown I wasn’t “factually wrong,” you suggested I deliberately “neglected to mention” things I’d already mentioned, then, when you had nothing left, switched the subject to corporate taxes?

I ask because the “Charles” at 1:12 am has a different IP address than the “Charles” who invested all that energy and made all those flubs in his quest to try and nail me on some sort of factual or logical error.

When people try so hard and fail so hard to catch me in a mistake, it makes me happy.

My favorite writer, H. L. Mencken, once said something to the effect of, “He does not even have the basic honor to ponder for a moment that maybe his enemies have noble intentions, too.”

Even taking into consideration the fact that you kept hammering even though you kept missing the nail, I will still cut you the slack of assuming you think you’re doing the right thing. Be a goddamned man instead of a herd animal and grant me the same courtesy.

Half of my new article is about most of the world’s cognitive inability, rooted in tribalism, to concede that maybe reality is actually 3D (or, according to M-theory, dodecahedral-dimensional or somesuch) rather than left-right. So what do you do? You accuse me of being “totally disingenuous” because I sincerely stated that I don’t ally myself with tribal movements and don’t honestly identify with Team Red or Team Blue.

Inside your head, you can organize the world any way you want. But what’s really disingenuous is to fuck up with every allegation you’ve made against me so far, then, when all that fails, to accuse me of dishonesty.

It could be I’m autistic. Maybe I’m a “sociopath,” to use one of the smear terms Ames likes to use when he isn’t fucking a 15-year-old Russian girl or suggesting that those who disagree with him should be imprisoned or spit on. Maybe you’re socially wired in a way that I’ve never been and simply can’t conceive that someone can decline membership in both Red Herd and Blue Herd.

Basically, all you have left (unless you find an actual logical or factual error, which I always concede—my track record’s clear as a bell regarding that) is to accuse me of being dishonest in an area where it’s impossible to prove or disprove honesty, since political affiliation is a social construct and what’s going on in someone else’s head really can’t be quantified.

If that’s all you have left, run to the bank with it, sailor. I sense you have a capacity be reasonable, but please ditch the rest.

I’m going to alter that last comment a little. I identify emotionally with the working class because for nearly 50 years now I’ve dealt with the kind of shit-end situations that never seem to affect the sort of upper-crust Berkeley graduates who claim authority to speak about working-class issues and lecture me about how I’ve somehow been deceived into voting against my best interests or whatever. The possibility that I don’t vote, nor that I won’t automatically bow to their “authority” on such matters, never seems to occur to them.

Ames was the one who took it to the gutter in bringing up the fact that I beat up a chick 13 years ago. I’ve never hid from that fact, but I also realize it’s an entirely irrelevant argumentative tactic used by people who can’t stay on-point. Here are more details about that case:

I notice that when people throw out the domestic-violence thing, they think it somehow undermines my credibility. But my crime was entirely an honest one. I’ve also noticed that when I show them tons of evidence that my case was far more multidimensional than the retardedly simplistic angels/devils scenario that leftists tend to pretend is the rule in all family-violence situations, they squinch their noses and shut the fuck up about it…temporarily.

I wouldn’t have mentioned what appear to be literal crimes of pedophilia that Ames committed if he hadn’t mentioned that I smashed some stalker girl’s face 13 years ago and did hard time for it.

But I sense that if he’d been arrested for such crimes, his daddy or someone else would have been able to bail him out and get him a good lawyer. So I react with those working-class emotions that tell me he’s a fake.

If I had been born extremely wealthy but with the same neuronal wiring, I doubt I’d pretend to be a member of the working class. That’s the difference between me and Ames.

But as far as joining some international workers’ guild, fuck that. I have little faith in humanity, especially with people who urge “revolution” but have no fucking idea what they’d do once the dust settles.

I’m pretty sure I know who “not published or required” is (the Crooks and Liars link, along with the “We need to vaguely do the right thing and not be heartless, although I have no practical plan or idea about how we’d even take the first step to accomplish it” motif points strongly in one direction), but I’ll respect their wish to hide behind a screen name as if it was about “free speech” rather than hiding behind a screen name.

It may have never occurred to that person that I love to argue a lot more than I care about whether I look like an asshole to them. And I doubt I’ll ever get props for, as someone already intimated on here, giving enough of a shit about what I write to defend it down to the last punctuation mark. 99 percent of you, writers especially, like to throw shit and then run. As I define it, THAT’S an “asshole.”

>>>>Apparently these Tea Party gatherings were not authentic “people’s uprisings” as the concept had been explained to him at Berkeley.

It couldn’t possibly be that, oh, someone lost a leg in Vietnam, lost their home last year, lost their job last month, lost their health insurance last week, and they’re angry and desperate and have made a conscious decision that this “Tea Party” thing most adequately represents their personal interests—no, these dumbfucks saw a 30-second commercial and were hypnotized.<<<<

"lost their home last year"
55% of tea party supporters earn 50k and above. 19% earn less than 30k.
Over the past year, Tea Party movement activists — originally kindled by grass-roots opposition to the economic stimulus bill and taxpayer bailouts of homeowners…..

"lost their job last month"
6% are unemployed, 49% are employed full time, 24% are retired,

"lost their health insurance last week"
87% of Tea Party supporters say they consider passage of healthcare reform a bad thing.

"they’re angry and desperate and have made a conscious decision that this “Tea Party” thing most adequately represents their personal interests"
Tea Party supporters are decidedly Republican and conservative in their leanings. Also, compared with average Americans, supporters are slightly more likely to be male and less likely to be lower-income.

Sigh. I’m glad you all keep trying, but not nearly as glad as I am at the fact that you all keep failing.

I’m also glad that now you (IP 110.33.206.1xx) are at least TRYING to stick to the facts, rather than bringing up the “smashing a chicks face in” thing as you did when you were “Sid Vicious” using the same IP address. Will you apply your standards equally and mention, at least once for the sake of fairness, that Mark Ames consciously chose to fuck a 15-year-old when he was in his mid to late thirties?

Seems we run in different circles, but I know plenty of people who fit the description I made in my article.

I choose my language very carefully, which is why I consciously chose the word “someone” rather than the phrase “all of them” or even “many of them.” The past six months this myth has emerged that this Tea Party thing was ENTIRELY manipulated and “Astroturfed” from above, a phenomenon I address in the passages directly preceding where I chose the word “someone.” Did you see the part about every last crumb and even the bedbugs? If you did, why are you ignoring it? If you’ll notice after I use the word “someone,” then I return to how Ames is depicting them—”these dumbfucks,” as if they were a unitary group all motivated by exactly the same thing.

And I definitely don’t ever attempt to say everyone protesting in Wisconsin was completely brainwashed by George Soros. I don’t make blanket assumptions such as that. I think some people can come up with their own opinions and many simply eat the memes they find most tasty. These tendencies are not specific to any ideology.

Personally, I lost my health insurance, am living with a life-threatening condition as a result of having a giant brain tumor removed three years ago, I have to support a 2-year-old, and I still consider forced governmental healthcare to be a bad thing because of its coercive and possibly mathematically unsustainable nature.

Then again, I’m not a “movement” member. Feel free to call me a self-hating imbecile who works against my own interests or whatever. That’s usually the next step after someone doesn’t think they way you insist they do, right? As I see it, part of this “free speech” thing involves the freedom to make your own conclusions after weighing the evidence. Dostoevsky wrote that the freedom to make wrong decisions was more healthy to the human psyche than being force-fed your opinions by experts who smugly insist they know what’s in your best interest.

I enjoy how the Tea Party have consistently been depicted as poor stupid trailer trash unless it suits their opponents’ needs. A study came out a few months ago that said Tea Partiers were, on average, more educated than the average American, but this undermined the narrative about them being brainwashed retarded zombies, so that study didn’t circulate as much.

“Tea Party supporters are decidedly Republican and conservative in their leanings. ”

And a lot are libertarian, anarchist, and what have you. And a lot of the Wisconsin protesters are self-proclaimed socialists and communists. Were THEY all brainwashed by propaganda, or did some of them arrive at their own beliefs? At least I’m willing to say there may be zombies and free thinkers in both crowds.

“55% of tea party supporters earn 50k and above. 19% earn less than 30k.”

And the average Wisconsin teacher, including benefits, which has been cited here numerous times, despite the fact you called it “dishonest,” makes just over $100K per year. The truth is, that 100K is in real dollars and includes healthcare and pensions and comes completely via coercion from taxpayers rather than, say, someone who freely chose to buy a product you’re helping produce.

Here’s where you originally called me dishonest…
“The 100k figure is their salary combined with their benefits and called their salary. It’s simply a dishonest debate tactic used buy [sic] people…”

And here’s what I wrote in the original article:
“According to one estimate, Milwaukee teachers make a little over $100,000 per year when benefits are included.”

So I never called it their “salary.” I said pretty much exactly what you said in your attempt to “counter” me. You either didn’t read the original article, misread what I originally wrote, or chose to misrepresent it. The only alibis for you in this specific matter seem to be dishonesty or poor reading comprehension.

But even if we both agreed to ignore the facts and set both teachers’ and Tea Partiers’ annual salary at 50K, are you then going to try and argue both groups have absolute parity when it comes to healthcare and benefits?

I’d guess that zero percent of the teachers make less than 30k, or definitely not a FIFTH of them, which is what the stats you cited reveal about the Tea Partiers. The “populist” edge goes to the Tea Party on this count.

And I’d also guess that hardly any Tea Partiers have the job security and the lifetime pension plan—on the taxpayers’ backs—that the teachers do. Yet somehow, these teachers are being depicted as “the people” and their movement as “populism,” while the barking dogs come out howling when anyone so much as suggests that elements of this Tea Party thing might be spontaneous and grass-roots, too.

A lot of people who agitate in the streets waving leftist placards about the proletariat are rich kids like Ames. It’s been my experience that the more obnoxiously progressive someone is, the more wealth they inherited. It’s not an ironclad rule, only a character type I’ve seen too many times over the years to ignore.

How many of these Tea Party septuagenarians were born into the “upper two percent” and then made a career out of pretending they represent the “lower 98 percent”? I’m sure there are some, and when I find one who directly tries to call me out on my working-class bona fides and accuses me of being a shill paid to express someone else’s opinions, I’ll treat them just as roughly as I did Ames.

But like I said in the article, my experience over the past 20 or so years has been that non-leftists aren’t so much disposed to the sort of take-a-shot-and-run tactics that Ames routinely uses. Being “old” allows me to remember when it was the “right” who were easily offended and resorted to threats and appeals to emotion when they couldn’t argue the facts.

Earlier on the thread you wrote this:
“I don’t usually have extended conversations with dishonest people who are desperately trying to win debates.”

No, but you’ve already left 12 comments on this thread totaling over 3,000 words, and you haven’t nailed me in one error or contradiction. As has already been proved, you either suffer from poor reading comprehension, didn’t read the article you were attacking, or you chose to misrepresent what I’d written.

the idea that the tea party is some fake corporately managed movment is crazy. Look at the debt and the unemployment rate. If Obama hadn’t continued bush’s bailouts and had allowed the correction to occur we would be at 7-8 and headed down. To put it simply, if Obama had sensible economic policies there wouldn’t BE a tea party movement.

Gaddafi soesn’t think theres a revolution going on in Libya he thinks its drugged out al queda and american operatives or something. funded by the Koch brothers.

Goad, I wouldn’t spend this much effort speculating about the ideological subtexts in your writings if I didn’t enjoy reading your stuff already. Or if I thought you were an idiot.

But anyway, perhaps our brains are wired differently, as you say. Because my brain is wired to think that if crushing a union has nothing to do with a budget crisis, but it’s being done in the name of a budget crisis, then something doesn’t add up. And I still haven’t seen anything in any of these articles that you’ve written on the subject that addresses that.

My brain is also wired to see tax cuts for corporations as a funny priority when there’s a budget crisis, particularly when most studies have shown no correlation between corporate tax cuts and job growth. Making a reference to Rachel Maddow’s budget flub doesn’t adequately respond to that. If $170 million dollars wasted for no reason is nothing to you, fine we just disagree.

My brain is also wired to see corporate tax evasion and loopholes as being very on topic. Corporations capture the legislative process, create loopholes for themselves when they’re not outright engaging in fraud with fancy accounting practices, and then blame the budget shortfall on working people. I see that as a pretty good microcosm of what’s happened to working people all over the world, particularly in the past two years.

My family all live in Ireland, a country that had a completely balanced budget that provided free university, excellent free health care and low corporate taxes. Some Irish corporate bankers woke up from their coke party realizing that they owed the world more money than existed in the entire country and then convinced their politician friends to guarantee those debts. So now everyone has to suffer because of some fucking fucktards. If you want to hate on an elite, hate people like them for Christ’s sake.

But yes, as I conceded in my second post, it’s true that the unions had not made their concession about benefits when you wrote your initial article. So your initial post was not “factually inaccurate” about that point. I gladly concede that point. But does it give you that much satisfaction to gloat about that fact now that it’s clear the intent of the whole charade was to crush the union outright all along? I call that missing the forest for the trees.

Now, as you have mentioned above, words are important. I never said that you “deliberately” neglected to mention these things. My point is that rightly, or wrongly, I believe that you have ideological reasons for disliking unions as an “aristocracy of labour” who obscure the real class struggle. I never said you didn’t have “noble” intentions, and I haven’t engaged in any of the cultural or ad hominem stuff. Actually, I’ve respected your intellect enough to take your theoretical references seriously and to try to trace their provenance in social theory.

What I do think is a different topic is the question of whether or not you define yourself publicly as a leftist. That debate is more of an intellectual diversion for me than anything. It has no bearing on all the nitty gritty of Wisconsin’s budget, although I actually enjoy dissecting ideology more.

Good day to you anyhow, sir.

P.S. I am totally an haut bourgeois cunt that you would hate on sight.

To me, it looks like that article is based on some red herring about the benefits being a “gift.” Not sure who said the benefits were a “gift,” but it isn’t me. And when the numbers are added, yes, it’s a little over 100K.

If anyone’s disturbed by the fact that MSNBC employs what would, according to American law, be a statutory rapist…

…He talks about me and Gavin polishing plutocrats’ shoes with our tongues. This, coming from a guy born in the top 2 percent and owned by George Soros.

…Without a speck of evidence, he keeps insisting I’m Koch-owned and avoids the fact that I’ve proven he’s Soros-owned.

…He says my hometown is Ridley Park, PA, but that’s where Taylor Hospital—where I was born—is located. I never lived in Ridley Park. I made it clear throughout “Redneck Manifesto” that my hometown is Clifton Heights, PA, zipcode 19018, never a summer resort for wealthy Philadelphians.

…I’ve never called myself “libertarian.”

…He keeps mentioning the age thing, although he’s only four years younger than me and has done a lot more speed, so you can all do the math.

…He runs away from a debate with me then accuses Gavin of “Shamelessly chicken[ing] out when you generate a single iota of real controversy.” He knows exactly what the debate would be about—my Wisconsin teachers’ article.

…He talks about “handing a gun to your opponent.” All I did was say he’s a good writer, much better than Taibbi. That’s because I don’t lie. The first time I heard of him, though, was when surfing my own name—after he’d already stolen “ANSWER Me!’ graphics and read “The Redneck Manifesto.” Apparently he buys books and steals graphics from people that he thinks are talentless. Different strokes!

…This is the first time I’ve heard “I’ll bust you like a grape in a public debate” described as groveling.

…He handed his employers a loaded gun by bragging about fucking a 15-year-old when he was in his 30s.

What school of economics is it exactly that says that in a severe down economy we have to let giant financial institutions fail and allow less access to money? What exact part of your ass did you pull those numbers out of?

Ha, that Ames guy really is a speed demon. I posted a comment on his fun site asking him about raping teenagers, and about 6 seconds later I’m “Gavin the “white power” fashionista Koch-suckup”:

#

18. Greg | March 1st, 2011 at 1:51 pm

My name is Gavin McInnes. I just got so fucking owned that I’m trying to find a way to get Mark in trouble. I’m going to tattle-tale on Mark. I think I will focus on things he wrote about fucking teenagers and whores. See, deep down I’m actually a politically-correct Canadian and I’m pretty sure this will really get Mark in trouble because I would never do this myself. So I’m going to tattle-tell. That’s what “white power” fashionista Koch-suckups do: we tattle-tell to Mommy or the principal or Markie’s employer, who will certainly be shocked. WaaahhhhH!!!

***

Is it true that deep down inside I really want to go to Russia for years and rape teens? Weird.

you all like Fergie- Why do you have Fergie in quotes? and it’s the frickin Austrian school. letting big institutions fail would not lessen any access to money. lehman brothers failed and its valuable components were sold off to Nomura (Jpaan) and some Barclays. the rest was liquidated.

If you don’t let them fail you risk things like huge real estate booms where they act foolishly beause they know they’ll be bailed out, as anyone would if you told them they would be bailed out if they screwed up.

no no no derange-ler. What a reductionist fantasiast you are. The bailout was needed to keep the fucking electric plants and grocery stores working. Then, what SHOULD’VE happened was regulations with balls to prevent reopening the casino. But no, tuns out Obama-fag is too psychostoopid to cheerlead real reform. He still at least averted total seizure, which is what you, Grampy McCain, and sarastoops would’ve blithered into, because you lack concern for genuinely suffering individuals, you favor instead your unidimensional pet theory as applied from your lofty perspective deep in ur mom’s basement.

This has been hilarious. I read some Goad back in the 90s and bought into his shtick because I was young and a moron. Now I am older and not so dumb, and it is nice to see Goad get his ass handed to him by Ames. Compare any of Goad’s written work to “Going Postal” by Ames and it becomes very clear who the real writer is, unless you are a troll paid to post under 70 different screen names.

All the Koch trolls posting comments on this site should get their talking points straight – is Ames gay, or does he like young girls? Can’t be both. You should really pick one if you are trying to make it stick. And Goad urging people to contact MSNBC to squeal on Ames and make him lose his very occasional talking head gig is one of the most pussy things a wife-beating pussy could stoop to. Clearly, there is nothing on earth with fewer balls than a Libertarian.

Kinda pathetic how the semi-underground 90s figures like Goad have turned libertard. I think I have a seven-inch somewhere for some crappy garage band that Peter Bagge did the cover art for. Hate used to be good for a laugh (it has aged much better than Goad’s writing) but now Bagge does comics for Reason and has become yet another pathetic libertard aging 90s hipster.

When we were led into the Koch Industries Secret Masonic White Power Meeting Room, they made it straight from the start, and you’re a shallow, callow man to ever suggest we deviated from what they called “The Plan.” This was the script, and we’ve stuck to it:

MARK AMES ACTS LIKE PAUL LYNDE AND FUCKS LIKE GARY GLITTER.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about pussy moves, Kevin, Mark—whatever your name is.

Here’s the pussy move: The lispin’ “reporter” keeps dodging a straight-on challenge to debate my article and the whole psychotic idea of Koch mind-control. He’s already spent about 10X the hours it would have taken to debate the article—could have been IM, didn’t matter. He keeps dodging the issue and keeps calling me a woman-beater. Since he insisted on taking the low road, I returned the courtesy. For about 14 years I’ve known what having shit like that flung at you feels like, so I thought I’d pour a cup o’ steamin’ Jim down his gizzard. If he wants to avoid the topic, I can, too. Remember—he was the one who started in with the FAG FAG and then the WOMAN BEATER WOMAN BEATER, then throws a Bay Area hissy-fit when I counter with the LISP LISP and the CHILD FUCKER CHILD FUCKER.

Only a fag would cry foul about that!

Problem is, he hasn’t taken the high road, manned-up, and discussed the fucking article. He just tosses out these demented KOCH ZOMBIE TOOL droolings. Who’s the one acting like the speech-puppet? And I think he really buys into it. Don’t do speed, kids. This is what happens.

Another difference: He didn’t have a Restraining Order against the Russian 15-year-old. He didn’t have her recorded death threats on tape. He just saw a 15-year-old and fucked her.

Another line of questioning he’s tiptoed around like Tiny Tim is the fact that this all started when he called me beholden to the Koch brothers. But he didn’t offer any evidence, because, well, there wouldn’t be any. In my article today on Taki Mag, I listed a few of the organizations that he works for and is paid by that are funded by George Soros. He has George Soros’s hardened fecal smears all over his face. He definitely doesn’t go near those facts.

“Despite all his quixotic and possibly speed-fried assaults on the Kochs, I have yet to see Ames mention that Über-billionaire George Soros funds “The Nation” via the Nation Institute. He doesn’t take great pains to inform you that Soros owns stock in General Electric, which owns MSNBC, which routinely trots out Soros-funded puppet shows such as MoveOn.org, Media Matters, and Move America Forward as if they were impartial sources.”

I personally think Jim Goad is ultimately on the Right on political stances. You kinda pissed me off because your diatribes have nothing to do with disputing Goad’s Wisconsin article or disputing his FACTS for that matter, but instead show “inconsistencies” on his views on class.

Besides sometimes Jim has views on the Left but most of his views land on the Right. Just like me, Gavin McInnes, Christopher Hitchens, and people who call themselves Libertarian, Conservative, neoconservative, pal-conservative or whateverthefuck-conservative.

As a political science nerd, I would like to say a big FUCK YOU to Charles.

He didn’t just fuck her. He delighted in the fact that he was taking an impoverished child who undoubtedly grew up under horrific circumstances, fed her coke, and ran her through the mud.

I love the way his depiction of McInnes comes from a 30 second speed addled google search – which yielded a hilarious collection of lies and quasi-truths.

This site and Ames’ get pretty much exactly the same amount of traffic. McInnes is a self-made man who lives by guile. In his early days, his success took him to NYC where he had women lining up to drink the sweat from the crack of his arse. It’s a well known fact that he actually set the bar at age 21 when it came to the women he would sleep with. He was occasionally the willing whipping boy of a few homosexuals in the local media, but at the end of the day, he was always a thoroughly decent man.

In an attempt to live a similar lifestyle, Ames had to fly all the way off to fucking early post-Soviet era Russia on his Daddy’s buck to perform hack journalism. The only “women” he ended up fucking were actually young girls lured by his “wealth” and cocaine. He was a predatory scumbag like many expats “living” in Moscow at the time. Have of his magazine was dedicated to telling them how and where they could fuck children. Kind of odd that he would use “a cat’s ass” as a metaphor. Makes you wonder what he got up to in Romania’s glory days – not to mention Southeast Asia. Pretty sick.

Luke, yes Charles did flit along here and he deigned to grace us with his noble disinterested observations, but so what? Did Charles really do the strenuous Herculean lifting that was needed to sling the mud to make this the longest and most harrowing thread since Raymi agreed to share an attic with someone who had low enough standards to desire her? Of course, this thread won’t ever be anywhere near as memorable since it lacks genuine misogynistic fission-frisson, but still, for tonnage of verbiage, it’s got that one beat by far. That one was pure burning jet fuel, this is more warm like a compost heap.

BUT ANYWAY, REALLY, when it comes to some serious learnings and perspective, there’s two resources that came up that really will move the “debate”, namely David Kay Johnston’s books, and primarily, most deeply, this one:

It’s a fundamental insight, and beyond caterwaulings both right and left. Not that any one of you posers will dig into it all the way and pull out the gleaming, gemlike insight which will dominate 22nd century political economy.

Jim Goad Says:
“I’m also glad that now you (IP 110.33.206.1xx) are at least TRYING to stick to the facts, rather than bringing up the “smashing a chicks face in” thing as you did when you were “Sid Vicious” using the same IP address.”

Funny. The “smashing a chicks face in” is one of the more factual statements I have made in this thread.
For the record, I have posted as Sid Vicious, EdgyNameGoesHere, Just the facts and a few as anonymous. If you catch me replying to myself then you’ll have something on me. Until then, the fact that I don’t care about the names I choose matters little.

“Will you apply your standards equally and mention, at least once for the sake of fairness, that Mark Ames consciously chose to fuck a 15-year-old when he was in his mid to late thirties?”

I don’t see how Ames fucking a 15 year old would be as relevant as “smashing a chicks face in” within the context of a discussion about fighting. You can be sure though that when the time comes to pick sides in a discussion about pedophilia I’ll be right there to defend you while calling him out.
As for Ames specifically, I don’t really care about him. I didn’t know who he was before this feud erupted, and now that I do know who he is, I still still don’t care. As you can deduce from the majority of my commentary, I do care about the lower middle classes trying to pull down the middle class in what I see as classic crabs in a barrel.
Ah! There is one thing I now know about Ames that I deeply dislike and that is posting your phone number in his latest volley. That was low, and although I never really cared about him before, I am now sure he is an asshole.

“So I never called it their “salary.” I said pretty much exactly what you said in your attempt to “counter” me. You either didn’t read the original article, misread what I originally wrote, or chose to misrepresent it. The only alibis for you in this specific matter seem to be dishonesty or poor reading comprehension.”

Of course there is one other alibi that I am sure your taint shaving analysis would have identified. I wasn’t talking about you.
I can see how you might think that my comments on this page would be about you and your article but honestly most of them aren’t. Outside of this website I have had a number of conversations on this subject and have had more than a few conservatives try to pull the 100k-as-salary deception. Hell, it’s right at the top of this page. I think it’s pretty clear that when that guy asked ” Where in America do teachers routinely make $100K?” he was referring to Gavins bit at the top of the page.

“Seems we run in different circles, but I know plenty of people who fit the description I made in my article.

I choose my language very carefully, which is why I consciously chose the word “someone” rather than the phrase “all of them” or even “many of them.”

Do you really think that referencing individuals while discussing groups is informative? I don’t. I see this reasoning frequently when talking with liberals about race. I make a statement about the actions or characteristics of a racial group and invariably someone will pipe up with “but I know a white guy that CAN jump really high!”. Maybe it’s slightly relevant, but I believe the larger the group and more consistent the characteristic of that group, the less relevant individual anomalies become. Of course I welcome your perspective on this.

“Personally, I lost my health insurance, am living with a life-threatening condition as a result of having a giant brain tumor removed three years ago, I have to support a 2-year-old, and I still consider forced governmental healthcare to be a bad thing because of its coercive and possibly mathematically unsustainable nature.”

You won’t have a hard time convincing me that Obamas health plan is completely misdirected. On the other hand, I hardly see how the The Tea Party platform will offer you anything other than “tough shit, if you need health care then find a night job”. As complicated as the health care issue is, nothing is more obvious than who is winning the negotiation that starts off “so….. you wanna live eh”?

“Tea Party supporters are decidedly Republican and conservative in their leanings. ”

And a lot are libertarian, anarchist, and what have you.”

Maybe we do run in different circles. The libertarians that I converse with daily were behind the tea party 100% when it was under its original founder Ron Paul. As much as it pains them, they admit that it was re-branded by Fox in 2008 to serve as a host for shamed republicans. Can you?

“Earlier on the thread you wrote this:
“I don’t usually have extended conversations with dishonest people who are desperately trying to win debates.”

No, but you’ve already left 12 comments on this thread totaling over 3,000 words, and you haven’t nailed me in one error or contradiction.”

Yet only 1 of those 12 comments were attempting to directly challenge one of your points. Within that one comment I provided research on the subject in question (The Tea Party) that painted a very different picture to the one you culled from your friends. Given that standoff, I’d say holding your own arm up in the ring right now is premature.

In summary, my only points directly related to you or your articles are:
Your books indicate that you have more to offer than this silly back and forth with Ames. Ames is easy and irrelevant.
If you are going to describe The Tea Party, then it only seems fair that you would describe them by their group demographics, not their individual anomalies.

My overriding point in this discussion:
A battle between the middle and lower middle classes will only erode solidarity and serve the elite.

You quote me:
“I know plenty of people who fit the description I made in my article.”

Then say:
“Do you really think that referencing individuals while discussing groups is informative? I don’t.”

You seemed to think so when you wrote this:
“I’ve never met anyone who combined their benefits into their salary and called it their pay….”

You write:
“I hardly see how the The Tea Party platform will offer you anything other than…”

I hardly see where I’ve ever declared myself a member or have bought into a “platform” that anyone’s peddling me. I was expressing my sincere feelings based on where I find myself socioeconomically in the entire dynamic/struggle/uprising/AIDS quilt, whatever. Quit it with the straw men.

You write:
“I don’t see how Ames fucking a 15 year old would be as relevant as “smashing a chicks face in” within the context of a discussion about fighting.”

The “fight” I proposed was a debate on my Wisconsin teachers’ article, a fight which Ames has run down the street flapping his big moist vagina lips avoiding. I didn’t write the headline for the article above.

My more recent article about Kochtopussies proved Ames is funded by Soros, so his “response” is to ignore the facts and accuse me of being funded by the Kochs, even though he couldn’t find a fact to support that speedfreak-lunacy allegation, mainly because no facts exist to support it.

My overriding point:
Terms such as “solidarity” and “the elite” sound nice at Jon Stewart rallies and on bumper stickers placed on the back of your Volvo, but I’m from the part of the lower-middle class that doesn’t want to pay overpaid and ineffectual government workers who turn out retards who know nothing beyond the fact that the Holocaust and slavery were BAD things. As I see it, they’re the ones who need to make the concession and are standing in the way of common understanding. They seem to think it’s “the elite” who pay their salary and benefits, but for the most part it isn’t. We’ve already contributed enough. Otherwise, thank you ever so much, but your disapproval in this matter doesn’t make a dent in my opinion.

Everyone’s invited to explain for me this magically spellbinding “populist” logic which dictates that the workers who have it worst need to concede to the workers who have it best in order for everyone to get along, otherwise they’re impeding progress.

None of you seemed to have a problem divesting white workers of perks and benefits in order to make it more equitable for blacks, so why all of a sudden has it become “crabs in a bucket” instead of “making things fair”? “Why, them blacks is actin’ like crabs in a bucket demanding that the playin’ field be leveled, I tell ya…”

“See, Jim, er, the public workers make, oh, 60K, and the private workers who pay their salaries, do more work, and produce more results (under threat of termination and with zero benefits) make 40K, so the latter group are really being babies when they don’t want to maintain this disproportionate chasm. Unless the workers who are treated worse continue to subsidize the ones who are pampered, there will never be justice.”

As far as I can see, the ones who are blind and unfeeling and standing like big fat cheese-eating bricks in the way of understanding are the ones who have it better but are screaming far more loudly than the ones who have it worse. Maintaining these double standards will only exacerbate tensions among the middle and working class as well as help lead every government budget toward insolvency. And until someone can explain otherwise without tossing in patently stupid and intangible “solutions” such as “It’s the right, der, non-heartless thing to do” or “You’re a fucking imbecilic corporate-shill retard brainwashed against fighting for your own interests,” I’ll stick with my feelings on this matter, THANK you all for this wonderful experience.

Ooooh Jimmy is mad- watch out for that burning stream of words!!!!
Jim- as I will say to anyone will listen you are a giant, almost an equal to Marvin (or Bullet the Doug) on “the Scheme” (google it, and see a real authentic street intellectual). Maybe like Marvin you should take to selling your autograph on the street.

from the AFL-CIO’s website (though seriously, those on this thread who say they still don’t get it, just don’t want to get it. and will cry “OF COURSE THAT’S WHAT THE AFL-CIO SAYS!”)

anyhoo:

“”Unions have made life better for all working Americans by helping to pass laws ending child labor, establishing the eight-hour day, protecting workers’ safety and health and helping create Social Security, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage…”

The right wing cannot answer the above arguments, so they avoid them, focusing instead on the greedy “union boss.” Unfortunately, partial truths aid this right wing attack on unions; some labor leaders in the U.S. today act as self-serving rulers over their union kingdom, collecting large salaries via dues money while ignoring the demands of their members and the needs of unorganized working people.

This insular thinking of some union leaders has helped distance the labor movement from the rest of the working class, at the expense of both. The right wing is now exploiting this separation, painting labor unions as “ruining America” while corporations claim they cannot afford the high wages of union workers, and state and federal governments blame union workers for their budget problems.

Unions have become the right wing’s ultimate scapegoat for the recession in their attempts to funnel the rage that many working people feel against labor unions. The right wing maniacally works to shift attention away from those who caused the recession and even benefited from it — the banks and corporations — to those who suffer from it — workers, immigrants, and the poor. It is the classic syndrome of blaming the victim.

Re-shifting the blame to where it belongs will take a re-shifting of the labor movement. The stagnant thinking of union officials will need to be replaced with inspiring actions, for example, in Wisconsin, and with inspiring slogans, such as “No Concessions” and “Tax the Rich.”

Wisconsin proves that organizing massive demonstrations with aggressive tactics inspires all working people, who are eager to push back against the corporate power that has dominated American politics for decades, through both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

The more that rank and file union members are inspired by these collective actions, the less willing will they be to accept reductions in their wages and benefits, which, over time, has led to a steady demoralization of the labor movement. The harder that union members fight to maintain or increase their wages and benefits, the more willing will unorganized workers be to join unions, since all workers become hopeful when they see other workers fighting for their rights.

Ultimately, labor unions must work extra hard to re-connect with the non-union working class. Massive resources must be put into organizing private sector workers. Unions must lead coalitions of labor and community groups to demand Jobs For All, Medicare For All, the Defense of Social Security, and other policies that benefit all working people.

By doing this, labor unions will re-ignite the hope of a better life in millions of non-union workers, who will then actively support the cause of labor unions and ask to join them. Only then will labor unions be strong enough to repel the attack on union wages and benefits that both Republicans and Democrats have participated in, by balancing state budgets on the backs of state and federal workers. State workers must demand that budgets be balanced on the backs of the corporations and rich instead.

As state and local public sector workers in Wisconsin and, for that matter, working people throughout the country demand “No Concessions,” they can make their slogan more tangible by demanding “Tax the Rich and Corporations,” as the way to resolve the fiscal crisis, which is something that millions of non-union workers would eagerly support and fight for.”

This has already been covered here, probably at least a dozen times. If you can find a way around this dilemma, let me know:

1) We’ve endured enough multicultural brainwashing that we willingly submit to a global labor pool, because to refuse would be “racist.”

2) Because our “country” has defined borders but its laws allow corporations to take the jobs overseas if you tax them more than they’re willing to pay…and if the laborers ask for more than, say, someone in Malaysia will accept…all you’re doing by taxing the rich is sending jobs and capital overseas. The rich stay rich; they probably get far richer that way.

3) The only way to sustain the kind of conditions for workers that you seem to think are sustainable is to enforce some kind of tariffs or protectionist system. And with unemployment the way it is, it’s probably best to put a stop to all immigration for the time being.

Basically, the US needs to turn to economic nationalism and quickly if it has any remaining scrap of hope to ensure working conditions don’t deteriorate far worse than they already are, and quickly.

The sticking point for “leftists” seems to be a culturally indoctrinated refusal to stop giving a shit about Malaysian workers and a naive immigration policy that refuses to see “the rich” have always imported immigrants to bust labor movements.

“3) The only way to sustain the kind of conditions for workers that you seem to think are sustainable is to enforce some kind of tariffs or protectionist system. And with unemployment the way it is, it’s probably best to put a stop to all immigration for the time being.

Basically, the US needs to turn to economic nationalism and quickly if it has any remaining scrap of hope to ensure working conditions don’t deteriorate far worse than they already are, and quickly.

The sticking point for “leftists” seems to be a culturally indoctrinated refusal to stop giving a shit about Malaysian workers and a naive immigration policy that refuses to see “the rich” have always imported immigrants to bust labor movements.”

agree. that seems, to me, (and i would think to most people using plain old common sense thinking) to be the way to go at this point. that being said, it sounds like you do agree with supporting unions, at least as a means to an end. that’s all i’ve been trying to say.

@Dragler: I’m sure grocery stores don’t go to Goldman Sachs, but establishing a business is expensive. Not everyone has that kind of cash on hand so they do go to a bank for a business loan. Just think about mortgages, dude.

“it sounds like you do agree with supporting unions, at least as a means to an end. that’s all i’ve been trying to say.”

Nothing I said in the Wisconsin teachers’ article, nor in the follow-up about the Kochtopussies, could be read by a reasonable person as being anti-PRIVATE SECTOR unions. Not a word. But fuck if that doesn’t stop the zombies from rolling out the “union-bashing, worker-hating, oligarch-worshiping, big-business-supporting” hallucinations, anyway.

That’s why I’ve wanted to debate this topic, because I’ve yet to hear an argument in support of the government unions that doesn’t grossly misstate my position on all this. It also leads me to believe I was right in thinking that schools these days churn out kids who know about the hot-button cultural issues but are entirely incapable of analyzing data and ferreting through bad logic.

Real slow now…

1) Government unions are an entirely different creature because they’re in bed with government and they “bargain” with one another about how much of my wages they’re going to siphon. I’m not against collective bargaining per se, but notice how no one is inviting the taxpayers—who pay everyone’s salary—to this bargaining table. If some wild scheme could be hatched wherein they send in taxpayers’ reps to sit at the table, that would possibly work.

2) NAFTA and the cherished global labor pool is what crushed the private unions beyond repair. If you want to go against “the rich,” cut out the policies that enable them to get richer at American workers’ expense. Tax the shit out of them not for employing American workers, but for outsourcing their jobs overseas. It’s the “We are the World” bullshit that gets in the way of a rational, workable solution.

That’s it. I know what’s in my heart when I write these articles, and from my perspective, it was totally pro-worker. It’s only that I don’t believe that government unions in any way represent the average worker’s interests and in fact exist as parasites upon the average worker.

It occurred to me that some would say elected officials are “taxpayers’ reps,” but I’ve never experienced that to be true.

Republicans support business power and Democrats support government power, with those forces often overlapping to the extreme. Neither one is doing any good for the average asshole. Nothing remotely resembling democracy currently exists. But even though it’s a malformed, embryonic idea, there needs to be some way for citizens to form a wedge between business and government power and hold them both accountable. Discuss.

Dragler, finance textbooks are pretty boring reads, so I can (kind of) understand why you would wonder what banks are for. There is a progam on TV called “Dragons’ Den” which you might find useful. Check it out.

Informing Ames’ employers that he, by his own admission, committed statutory rape while in Russia is a waste of time. It would be much more productive to inform The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Services. By admitting to committing crimes against children, Ames has opened himself up to criminal prosecution. His publisher is also in danger of criminal/civil court actions.

greg – I know what banks are for, I’m saying if we had let the banks fail the world would not have come to an end. As an example I noted that Lehman brothers profitable non toxic units were bought up by banks and continued to exist.

My other point was that most businesses don’t have to take out loans to meet their payroll.

The bottom line is it is a MUCH bigger risk to a society to have banks thinking they will be saved no matter what they do then to let a few of them fail.

“My … point was that most businesses don’t have to take out loans to meet their payroll [because] they make tons of money”

How the hell do you think they end up in a position where they are making tons of money? Payrolls aren’t their only goddam expense, and sales aren’t their only source of funds. Actually, forget it. You win. I’m not arguing with Dragler.

Actually, if you read what I wrote, I was suggesting that Jim Goad has very consistent views on class issues. His views are consistently Marxist. I hold some Marxist views myself, so I don’t consider that to be an insult or an attack.

Also, I really really don’t like the modern applications of the linguistic turn, and if anything, I like words to hold consistent meanings. If anyone on this thread has anything at all on me, it’s “all scholarly n shit”, who is correct in observing that I like to use 19th century terminology to discuss politics. Why is that? Because that language created most modern political concepts, those original political concepts are still internally consistent and we’re still living in the world they created.

For example, the word “liberal” should always mean someone who believes in personal responsibility, personal freedom and economic freedom. How can a liberal support welfare programs? Simple, read John Stuart Mill or Adam Smith; they believed that individuals are not “free” if they are living in poverty. “Socialists” believe in destroying poverty, inequality and the class system altogether, while liberals believe in providing opportunities for individuals to cycle through the class system according to their talents. Liberalism is the dominant ideology of capitalism in the same way that socialism is the dominant ideology of communism.

“Conservative” means someone who wants to conserve traditions and systems that work and discard those that don’t, and “reactionary” means someone who wants to turn back the clock to a mythical age of innocence, and usually wants the [Catholic] Church to run society. “Radicals” are people who want to change society utterly, whether they are liberal or reactionary or socialist.

@Jim Goad:

Okay, so if I have this straight, we should let public sector unions collapse and then have all workers on an equal playing field. Once middle class jobs no longer exist, the workers will have to come to terms as a class with their uniform level of exploitation. Then they will begin to agitate for more power and structural changes to the capitalist system as a single unit, rather than as a polity divided against itself? You bloody Marxist.

dragler, I realize that during the meltown of ’08, you were too busy beating off to glimpses of your mom in the shower to learn a little something about what was happening in the larger world oustide your basement bedroom, but HOLY GUACAMOLE!

“Investopedia explains Short-Term Paper
The majority of financial institutions rely on being able to roll over short-term paper for their day-to-day financing needs. During the U.S. financial-market meltdown of 2008, institutions essentially halted issuing short-term paper, and the U.S. government had to intervene to provide liquidity for corporations caught without the means to finance operations.”

dragler, that you waste electrons arguing about macroeconomics when you don’t have the first fucking clue about micro cash-flow really highlights your proud, flagrant ignorance. You think a chain grocery store or electric-utility power plant gets cash, puts it in a safe in the back office, and then peels a few hundreds off the wad to pay the bills as needed? Holy fucking shit! Did you never hear of a “supply chain?” With every word you type, people lose more respect for your fantastically simplistic opinions.

I do like the munchkin music, tho. It’s very soothing. i think you’re a nice guy personally, but you should stope deluding yourself that you know the first teeny tiny microscopic little thing about political economy.

For the sake of informed discourse, we sincerely beg you to please not respond. xxoo

Lest there be confusion as to what dragler said before he started his usual walkback, here’s dragler quoted above in thread: “letting big institutions fail would not lessen any access to money.”

IF you meant to say that letting the air out slowly and then tightly regulating, then OK. But what you have always advocated is to let the whole entire shit crash and burn and then let the darwinian Winners (fantasizing yourself as muscular, and at long last liberated from your mom) rule the ashes.

no no no derange-ler. What a reductionist fantasiast you are. The bailout was needed to keep the fucking electric plants and grocery stores working”

that’s what I was responding too. If AIG hadn’t been bailed out, the grocery store and power plant would not have closed.

Then, what SHOULD’VE happened was regulations with balls to prevent reopening the casino. But no, tuns out Obama-fag is too psychostoopid to cheerlead real reform. He still at least averted total seizure, which is what you, Grampy McCain, and sarastoops would’ve blithered into, because you lack concern for genuinely suffering individuals, you favor instead your unidimensional pet theory as applied from your lofty perspective deep in ur mom’s basement.”

the rest is his calling me names because I didn’t want to bail out wall street, who have sine not done shit for main street.

“this isn’t about money; it’s about union busting. anybody making under a quarter of a million a year who is against the unions on this is a self-loathing imbecile, pure and simple.”

Or principled enough not to require personal attachment to an issue so that is colors their opinion. The issue really isn’t about the teachers making too much in salary/benefits, it’s that they must tax a private sector workforce whose wages/salaries have been eviscerated via off-shoring, deindustrialization, H1B visas, illegal alien downward wage pressure, and out-sourcing. The teachers salaries/benefits have kept pace with inflation while the people paying for them have lost ground, so the empathy well is running dry.

actually, they narrative is that “they must tax the private sector.” this is untrue. they could be asking corporations to pay their fair share. but they won’t, for a multitude of reasons already discussed upthread. unions did not kill the economy.

“The teachers salaries/benefits have kept pace with inflation while the people paying for them have lost ground, so the empathy well is running dry.”

right. and that lack of empathy is misdirected. taking down public unions is not going to help the private sector. once that final cookie crumbles, it is unlikely that all workers will suddenly decide to band together and revolt against the ptb. why not ride the momentum while we’ve got it, begin to demand what the unions have, and finally direct the anger at the appropriate sources full-force?

Jim says that private sector and public sector unions are different animals, or at least different. that phrase rings a bell, o yea it was in a David Brooks column- goad serving up a little bit of Brooks for hip people. Or just another not too smart plagerizing regurgitating sub-intellectual prostitute— I’m sorry-I didn’t mean it how about watching ‘born fighting’ over some stella artois’s

All I can say is you have bought the bankers like hook line and and sinker. AIG could have gone bankrupt and the sun would not have set on Earth. We woukld be a in am uch better placwe now and I wouldn’t have to see the GS and AIG tickers, that alone would make the world better.

as far as regulation. the federal reserve WANTED the housing boom. WHy would they put something in plaace so it couldn’t happen again? and what would that look like. We alredy ahve something called sarbanes oxley of which I’m sure yo uare aware. it didn’t do shit to stop the huousing debacle the same way spending blilions of intelligence dind’t stop 9/11.

1) You run with an unproved assumption (the middle class will evaporate once public unions collapse), then you press the accelerator as if that was already settled.

2) “the workers will have to come to terms as a class…as a single unit”
Do you buy your straw men from China? Is that why you have so many? No workers should be forced to do anything or join anything. “Single unit” sounds coercive…even “fascistic” for those who can’t live without labels. If there are unions, let them even compete among one another if they want. You’re suggesting a level of coercion and uniformity at which I never so much as hinted.

3) I’ve already explained that I feel “tax the rich” is unworkable unless severe protections for American workers are enforced. Otherwise, the rich will tell everyone to bite it, then ship operations to Chad. OK, not Chad. Maybe Somalia. All right, India.

4) From my experiences and those of my friends, where workers have been hit hardest over the past generation involves a shift change away from full-time-with-benefits jobs toward part-time and contract work. That’s what leaves most people hanging in the wind. Taxation is inherently coercive, but if we’re going to depend on taxes to form our society, these taxes should ultimately benefit the taxpayer. If we could be guaranteed that our taxes don’t go to stupid wars, corporate and financial bailouts, bloated salaries and pensions for government workers who don’t have to perform in order to retain their jobs, et al, I’m okey-dokey with our taxes going toward healthcare and pensions and food, etc. Audit the fucking Federal Reserve, too. Kicking us back the interest these rodents “earn” by printing worthless paper would be like a Christmas Bonus for the entire nation. What’s disgusting is that the USA is financing trillion-dollar wars while people in Ohio are eating Milk-Bones. (OK, I made that up about the Milk-Bones, but it’s possible.)

Let the botched political pigeonholing and the brain-dead misrepresentations begin!

1) I don’t think that the middle class only consists of public sector union jobs. I just think that public sector union jobs are one of the last bastions, since white collar middle class jobs got outsourced to India and blue collar middle class jobs have been outsourced to China.

2) When I said “as a single unit” I could easily have said “as a polity” or even “as a distinctly identifiable class”. Whether you prefer a scenario of competing unions or co-ops or one giant union or any other kind of worker organization, it’s all basically the same idea. What would be fascistic would be to have workers see themselves as part of an organic and unchanging national community that preserves class differences as somehow natural and desirable parts of the whole. That is actually the ideology of fascism.

3) Right, so workers need to be given more power, I get it. And the rich need to be controlled or expropriated so they can’t engage in capital flight.

4) Come to think of it, what you’re describing sounds kind of like an anarchist federation.

So maybe you’re into Malatesta more than Marx. Fair enough, I like him better too.

“Also, I really really don’t like the modern applications of the linguistic turn, and if anything, I like words to hold consistent meanings. If anyone on this thread has anything at all on me, it’s “all scholarly n shit”, who is correct in observing that I like to use 19th century terminology to discuss politics. Why is that? Because that language created most modern political concepts, those original political concepts are still internally consistent and we’re still living in the world they created.”

Leftist and rightwing politics are political stances which are inherently opposite. That’s why it’s called LEFT and RIGHT.

For example, the word “liberal” should always mean someone who believes in personal responsibility, personal freedom and economic freedom. How can a liberal support welfare programs? Simple, read John Stuart Mill or Adam Smith; they believed that individuals are not “free” if they are living in poverty. “Socialists” believe in destroying poverty, inequality and the class system altogether, while liberals believe in providing opportunities for individuals to cycle through the class system according to their talents. Liberalism is the dominant ideology of capitalism in the same way that socialism is the dominant ideology of communism.

“Conservative” means someone who wants to conserve traditions and systems that work and discard those that don’t, and “reactionary” means someone who wants to turn back the clock to a mythical age of innocence, and usually wants the [Catholic] Church to run society. “Radicals” are people who want to change society utterly, whether they are liberal or reactionary or socialist.”

Someone did their homework. Liberalism and conservatism are NOT opposites, although one has become synonymous with leftwing politics and the other for the Right, as their principle philosophies tend to side with one political system over the other.

Multiculturalism and egalitarianism has become the MAIN agendas (if not the ONLY ones) becoming prevailed by the Left nowadays.

But guess what? Notions of equality are bullshit. Not everyone is equal in society by nature. Individuals are smarter, stronger, and more attractive over the others.

As for Jim, he understands class conflict very well, but I have to agree with his reluctance to think that the races shall come together and overthrow the wealthy oligarchy.

To be honest liberalism and conservatism has had a etymological shift even by 19th century standards. I think conservatism is the basic belief that all revolutions are ways for a grip of assholes to take power from the grips of old crusty assholes.

Actually, you know the thing is, in a sense, everyone is somewhat of a liberal under the definition provided by the times of John Stuart Mill. Although If you actually do read On Liberty, you would realize if the man was alive today, he would be on the Right.

Multiculturalism is too blinded sided and anti-white. I’m sorry but it’s true. The Redneck Manifesto made some similar arguments about how “backwards people” are marginalized and ridiculed while On Liberty humorously mentions the double standard whites have about Mormons. Polygamy is considered a barbaric practice —if white people are the ones practicing. Both Mr. Goad and John Stuart Mill realize this double standard is inherently racist as well.

“actually, they narrative is that “they must tax the private sector.” this is untrue. they could be asking corporations to pay their fair share. but they won’t, for a multitude of reasons already discussed upthread. unions did not kill the economy.”

Fair share of profits or gross sales? Would you suggest some VAT and/or Carbon taxes? Which Mandarin/technocrat has the magic formula to determine what this “fair share” percentage should be? Most US corporations you want to tax are small businesses. My company pays 30% on after tax profits, so we make end of the fiscal year purchases to limit our tax liability. Cash spent on unnecessary, yet deductible capital expenditures and the remaining 30% on profits = $.30 on the dollar that does not go towards hiring a new employees or growth that could fuel expansion.

Individuals and corporations should pay a reasonable share of taxes, but you run the risk of killing the golden goose of economic growth and job creation by sticking it to the corporations of every size. It’s the same thing on an individual level with progressive taxation (also one of the main planks of Communism), because it inequitably penalizes economic success by taxing high earners at a higher percentage rate.

Jimmie- my evident lack of writing skill does not detract from the fact, you stole a phrase from DAVID BROOKS. It’s kind of sad really, you live this writer living in poverty act in order to write great words, and all it yields is a Brooks or O’Rourke column. I guess it beats selling your autograph on the street- when the reality show being filmed?

You quote me:
“I know plenty of people who fit the description I made in my article.”

Then say:
“Do you really think that referencing individuals while discussing groups is informative? I don’t.”

You seemed to think so when you wrote this:
“I’ve never met anyone who combined their benefits into their salary and called it their pay….”

Where there is data, it should be used. Without data, the only thing left is observation.
There was a mountain of data on The Tea Party yet you chose to ignore it. There was zero data available on the usage of whole dollar amounts in overall income descriptions. Only a lifetime of observation. I think it was also telling that as much as many here would have liked to, no one had the audacity to say that they regularly lumped benefits into the salary description.

Good try though.

“You write:
“I hardly see how the The Tea Party platform will offer you anything other than…”

I hardly see where I’ve ever declared myself a member or have bought into a “platform” that anyone’s peddling me. I was expressing my sincere feelings based on where I find myself socioeconomically in the entire dynamic/struggle/uprising/AIDS quilt, whatever. Quit it with the straw men.”

You have to know that your positions can mostly be deduced by what you approve or reject in writing. At this point, I have seen zero criticism of either The Tea Party or their now de-facto leader Sarah Palin from you. Most of your writing defends both of them, so you shouldn’t lose your mind when people infer that you are mostly sympathetic to their ideals.

“Terms such as “solidarity” and “the elite” sound nice at Jon Stewart rallies and on bumper stickers placed on the back of your Volvo,”

It’s amazing how you can deduce what rallies a person attends and kind of car a person drives from just one or two words while flipping out at the idea that someone might infer a party alliance based off of thousands of words in defense of that party.

“but I’m from the part of the lower-middle class that doesn’t want to pay overpaid and ineffectual government workers who turn out retards who know nothing beyond the fact that the Holocaust and slavery were BAD things.”

Isn’t it funny watching a culture that celebrates all that is vulgar and stupid while asking “why are we so dumb now?” as they drive past their fully outfitted schools? It couldn’t be that the kids aren’t motivated to learn, no, it must be those liberal teachers. Reminds me of that picture of the homeless guy holding the sign with the words “it’s your fault”.

“Everyone’s invited to explain for me this magically spellbinding “populist” logic which dictates that the workers who have it worst need to concede to the workers who have it best in order for everyone to get along, otherwise they’re impeding progress.”

Is there really anyone pushing that logic or have you just made it up based purely on the past weeks events?
I know you hate em, but it’s a fact that the same type of people backing the teachers also tried to back your unemployed Tea Party buddies only months ago when the unemployment benefits extension was up for a vote.

This is getting beyond gay. Try making any kind of objective remark about your passion for molesting impoverished children on your gay site and it gets deleted. Here you can say whatever you want. Arv does look over the comments every now and then, but he’s an Indian and he’s in a K hole 90% of the time. Conclusion: Mark Ames is a pussy. Seriously, what other explanation is there for exiled comments being so neurotically monitored (besides meth)?

Why don’t you ever respond to queries about your violent subjugation of a 13 year old Russian boy? You keep saying that it’s already public knowledge, but do you actually feel any remorse over it? Also, what’s with the brown suede jacket?

“Jimmie- my evident lack of writing skill does not detract from the fact, [comma is wrong] you stole a phrase from DAVID BROOKS.”

No one said anything about your writing skill. I said you call people “not too smart,” then, THE VERY NEXT WORD, you misspell a common word. I’d say “stupid” and “hypocritical” are more apt terms to describe you.

You know who else said there was a huge difference between public and private unions? FDR! And others throughout history! Imagine that! And I happen to agree without having received radio signals in my tooth fillings from them.

And I quoted FDR’s stance in the original article in which your speed freed kid-fucker poverty-pretender couldn’t even hope to debate me on.

Fool, I’ve never seen the column from which you’re INSISTING I stole a phrase, but honesty never seems to sway you zombies. You’re intent on calling me a liar, although no one has caught me in a single lie here, and I’ve enumerated about 40 from your rich daddy’s boy child-fucker who plays “poverty.”

I’ve found that the people most likely to accuse others of being political tools are themselves the political tools. Ames keeps screaming I’m controlled by the Kochs but can’t come up with a shred of evidence, because NONE EXISTS. I provided ample evidence he’s employed by George Soros. So he ignores that and comes back screaming that I’m controlled by the Kochs. Can you step back and for even a moment realize who’s acting like the mind-controlled zombie here?

“no one had the audacity to say that they regularly lumped benefits into the salary description.”

Heebie-jeebies, as I remember it, I said “including benefits” in my original article, then you came along and accused me of “dishonesty” for failing to include benefits in my calculation. You had the audacity to lie in the process of accusing me of lying.

“Most of your writing defends both of them, ”

Where? I wrote that Sarah Palin doesn’t have the IQ of an Alaskan King Crab. A criticism of one group isn’t by default a defense of another, but Team Players couldn’t even conceive of such things.

“Isn’t it funny watching a culture that celebrates all that is vulgar and stupid ”

Classist! There are tons of things that are retarded about black culture, too. And even more that’s vulgar and hypocritical about rich-white-leftist culture. Spread the hate around. I know it’s currently only acceptable to channel your natural-born ethnic and class hatred at white trash, but spread it around!

By now you should realize I support every word I write. And if I accuse someone of something, I document the reasons for my accusations.

Now go and hold Ames to the same standard. He’s repeatedly called me a “white power” advocate, knowing how that stirs up emotion in his tribe. What I want you to do is go and demand he produce evidence of even a single sentence I’ve written or statement I’ve made where I advocate “white power.” Only one.

This rich-boy teener-fucker considers himself a “journalist,” then goes and flings completely unsubstantiated accusations—”white power,” “owned by the Kochs,” etc. His long paper trail of deliberately fucking up the facts grows longer every day. You can only get away with lying for so long.

“Trust companies rather than the banks were the key to the panic. Since 1898 they had quadrupled in size because ordinary banks were required by law to maintain large cash reserves but trust companies were not. With only 2% or 3% of their assets lying idle in the form of cash, trust companies could afford to pay high interest rates to depositors. Suddenly, with the collapse of the Knickerbocker Trust, depositors became frightened. Trust companies, with their low reserves, would be hard pressed to cover their accounts by even a moderate panic among their depositors. ”

“Even so, the Panic of 1907 was like many of the crises that went before it and would happen after it. It was inevitable, because highly leveraged and overextended lenders and speculators lead to eventual ruin.

“And like the hedge funds of today, trusts became heavily invested in the stock market using extreme leverage, or borrowed money. They didn’t keep much in the way of reserves and were susceptible to sudden adverse changes in stock prices”

so okay you don’t need a central bank to have a dumb trend that happens.

at least the trusts didn’t get bailed out. the lesson was learned, they should have just gone back to having the regular banks.

You know how when Marxists (in high school) say that when we free ourselves from the chains of our capitalist oppressors we will be free of racism and sexism and everyone will be perfect and behave with complete ethical fortitude and blah blah blah?

We all know that’s dumb because it runs counter to everything we know about history. Before capitalism people were horrible selfish dicks, and they still are.

It’s the same thing with Austrian school economics. It’s all based on an idea of how you like to think things would work in some kind of unrealized idyllic perfect world of laisser faire that HAS NEVER EXISTED. It has zero basis in historical evidence and every time the principles behind it are put into practice it inevitably fails miserably. The fact is that the only way any country has ever gotten out of a severe recession is by making more money available for investment. Remember why we got off the gold standard in the first place? Remember how getting off it is tied historically to basically every country in the world getting out of severe down economies? You can’t solve a recession by making money harder to get, that has been demonstrated by every recession that has ever happened anywhere.

Keep clinging to your imaginary way things “should be” and keep pretending that just because you wish they were that way that you can ignore the real world and how things actually go. Why not get back on the gold standard right? It’s not like there aren’t a million actual practical reasons why it doesn’t work in real life, but as long as it works great in make believe world we might as well jump right in!

Jimmie is mad!!! Must of hit close to home. I got you when I said you stole your ideas, or that all you can come up with is some dross any one can read in the Weekly Standard. Quit writing, spare us your amateur hour, leave it too professionals.
I have to apologize, in an earlier post I said you were almost the equal to Bullet the pit bull, but after reading your response, the dog wins the brains competition. I’m sure a dog, on a worthless reality show can put a little coherence in it’s web postings. I bet bullet can even address an opponents point.
I never claimed to smart Jimmie, I merely said you weren’t, and that your writing is worthless- dispute that if you can, bear in mind you’re up against a lot of evidence. If you support every word you write- you’ve wasted your time and energy.

Jimmie-re-read your post- you are a looney toon- i’m speaking objectively here!! start taking your meds, they’ll spare you a lot of pain.
I neither know or care about Ames drug habits, but hasn’t Goad bragged several times in print about being a crankster, hanging out with crank dealers, having a crank problem. Hypocrisy and stupidity are the coins of the goad realm, lots of examples of both can be found in collected works of Jimmie-

@Jim Goad
““no one had the audacity to say that they regularly lumped benefits into the salary description.”

Heebie-jeebies, as I remember it, I said “including benefits” in my original article, then you came along and accused me of “dishonesty” for failing to include benefits in my calculation. You had the audacity to lie in the process of accusing me of lying.”

What part of “I wasn’t referring to you” is so hard to understand?
As is documented up thread you accused me of saying that you lumped benefits in with salary but it was clearly pointed out to you that your boy Gavins misrepresentation was the quote being referenced. So your only alibis at this point are poor reading comprehension or short term memory loss.

““Most of your writing defends both of them, ”

Where? I wrote that Sarah Palin doesn’t have the IQ of an Alaskan King Crab.”

While could argue that “I choose my words carefully, notice that I said “most” not “all” , in the interest of goodwill I’ll say, fair enough, I’ll subtract 12 words.

“A criticism of one group isn’t by default a defense of another, …..”

Agreed, however that’s only half of the information to which I was referring. The other half was the thousands of words in defense (minus the 12 critical words). Your defense is there in black and white so there’s no need for a false default.

““Isn’t it funny watching a culture that celebrates all that is vulgar and stupid ”

Classist! There are tons of things that are retarded about black culture, too. And even more that’s vulgar and hypocritical about rich-white-leftist culture. Spread the hate around. I know it’s currently only acceptable to channel your natural-born ethnic and class hatred at white trash, but spread it around!”

Careful. Building a straw man that gigantic is likely to attract a drum circle of dreadlocked SF bike couriers looking to burn it.
If you weren’t so eager to keep building this leftist straw man you would know that I agree with you on both of those counts. Unfortunately for the support of your straw man, the details of the culture to which I was referring didn’t matter in the point I was making. Nice to see you’d rather attack your fabricated image of me than my point though. It’s a sure sign of someone who is trying to have an honest discussion.
See, this is why it is so hard to beat me here jim. I’m not what you think I am and that falls outside of the prefabricated attacks that you have in reserve for the left. If I were a typical leftist then all of your stereotypes (most of which I agree with BTW) would have unfolded before you and you would have nailed me in numerous hypocrisies and I would have run away. But that didn’t happen did it? So now all that’s left for you are the straw men you build and the canned attacks .

Now. Just so you don’t have to go through the effort of building any more of these fabrications…

• I believe that our presidents are only figureheads at this point. We’ve had the cowboy, the cool but white black dude and we will possibly have a ditzy soccer mom milf in 2012. None of it will matter since the government is owned by those with enough money to direct its actions towards making more money for those with enough money already.
• Global warming may or may not be happening but one thing I am certain of, when the biggest polluters in the world get behind a carbon derivatives scheme invented by the woman who invented the credit default swaps, I am sure it is a scam.
• Since 9/12 i have believed that the WOT should be fought both covertly and brutally.
• The draft needs to be reinstated so as to insure that we don’t go to war for moneyed interests. (I realize this is easy for me to say at 50)
• The HDI is all I need to prove there is also value in cultural and genetic homogeneity.
• Life begins the moment a brain develops.
• Homosexuals and straights cannot choose their partnering lifestyle. Bisexuals can.
• Homosexuals cannot be “cured” any more than pedophiles can be “rehabilitated”. It irritates me that so many gay psychologists do not see this contradiction.
• Capital punishment may not reduce the amount of murders or bring back a loved one but it will stop the injustice of victims families having to pay for the murderers music lessons as they live out the rest of their lives reading magazines and pumping iron.
• Allowing convicted criminals to become bigger stronger criminals through the use of body building equipment while in prison is idiotic.
• While Islamic culture has many faults, it appears to have the right idea when dealing with those who victimize innocents. I believe finger/hand/limb removal should be trialed for repeat offenders. I’d like to see it applied to white collar crime as well.
• Americas gun violence has less to do with the availability of guns and more to do with its culture.
• Drug legalization should at least be trialed. All drugs including cigs and alcohol should be taxed heavily with funds going directly to public health care, and sold from grim, grey buildings accompanied by graphic information on how much of a loser you may become if you get too into any of them.
• Health care is a uniquely unfair negotiation at its core and as such needs strict measures in place if a society wishes to see itself as humane.

So take your pick. Agree, disagree strongly or ignore, I don’t care. Just pick something that I am, not something you wish I were.

@”The other half was the thousands of words in defense (minus the 12 critical words). Your defense is there in black and white”

I’m assuming this “defense” is of the Tea Party, which is what you accused me of defending before, yes? I’m just waking up, so if I’m making false inferences, let me know.

And I’m guessing—tell me if I’m wrong—that by criticizing the Wisconsin teachers, I was, by default, “defending” the Tea Party? That’s ridiculous, but if you were talking about some other “thousand words,” kindly point me to them.

So where is this “defense” again, much less “in black and white”? Scanning the memory banks, the only “defenses” I’ve ever written were:

1) Comparisons of their alleged “hate rhetoric” vis-a-vis that of those who are always accusing them of “hate rhetoric.” That one was pretty clear-cut: There were more Hitler comparisons, more calls for murder and lynching, and (at last count at least two) more physical assaults of reporters at the Wisconsin shindig than in all the other Tea Party hoedowns combined.

2) An investigation into who’s funding a single pundit who accuses Tea Partiers of all being funded by the Kochs. The investigation concluded—and no one’s challenging it—that he’s being funded by George Soros. His response? To ignore it and to continue to accuse me—who’s never met the Kochs nor written for or been paid by any organization they fund—as being beholden to them. With logical tactics such as that, no wonder he shied away from a debate.

If you’d like to point out what was logically or factually wrong with #1 or #2, I’m all ears.

Again, just waking up, but to my memory, the only time I actually debated someone about the Tea Party was here:

And if you’ll notice, the points of my argument involved nothing more than dismantling the criticisms that were being used against them. That’s not by default a “defense.” It is, as it always tends to be with me, an attack on hypocrisy and bad logic.

The Tea Party has been routinely misrepresented and shat upon by a smirking coastal elitist media. In the process, there have been megatons of unforgivably bad “journalism.” The whole blaming-Sarah-Palin-for-the-Tucson-shootings thing comes to mind. That’s extraordinarily irresponsible reporting, the sort of which anyone at MSNBC or Media Matters would LEAP upon if someone from “the other side” engaged in it. It was as idiotic as Mark Ames blaming the TSA scanner controversy on the Koch brothers.

Otherwise, I comment on these situations as an individual, not a team player, a concept which seems increasingly difficult for most of you to grasp. That’s why there’s so much bad faith in these sort of discussions—most of those who automatically “take sides” reflexively assume the other side is as brainwashed, blindly partisan, and committed to a “the ends justify the means” strategy as they are. And I guess that’s why an attack on one side is automatically presumed to be a defense of the other.

@”Now. Just so you don’t have to go through the effort of building any more of these fabrications…”

“• I believe that our presidents are only figureheads at this point.”
Strongly agree and have been saying it for years. And I’d remove the “at this point.” They were probably never more than figureheads.

“• Global warming may or may not be happening but one thing I am certain of, when the biggest polluters in the world get behind a carbon derivatives scheme invented by the woman who invented the credit default swaps, I am sure it is a scam.”
One thing I do know: There are vested financial interests on both sides of this discussion. I’ve never pretended to be an expert on the topic, so for now, I’ll merely point out that there are moneyed interests on both sides, both of which would likely try and suppress information that doesn’t fit their interests.

• Since 9/12 i have believed that the WOT should be fought both covertly and brutally.
Not sure where you’re going with “covertly and brutally,” but I’ve always said I’ve been against the Middle Eastern wars. I’m mostly a Judeophile, but I also feel strongly that making Israel a state in 1948 was a big mistake which likely has no peaceful solution. I also find it curious that those who caution us not to blame “all Muslims” never seem to cut the same slack to “all Christians” or “all white people” when it comes to historical atrocities.

“• The draft needs to be reinstated so as to insure that we don’t go to war for moneyed interests. (I realize this is easy for me to say at 50)”
I’m 49, and Ames is 45. So his opinions about the draft are about as valid as mine if you consider neither of us will be drafted. However, my brother fought in Vietnam and my father in WWII, so you might want to ask him about his family pedigree when it comes to things such as the draft.
Beyond that, I don’t agree with a mandatory draft. But if it were reinstated, I’d re-jigger it so that rich kids can’t get deferments and you don’t have only poor whites and blacks fighting in the trenches as has been the pattern.

“• The HDI is all I need to prove there is also value in cultural and genetic homogeneity.”
Disagree. To prove things, a person should rely on as many sources as possible.

“• Homosexuals and straights cannot choose their partnering lifestyle. Bisexuals can.”
I’d say in some cases homosexuality is genetic and in others it’s a result of life experiences. I don’t think it’s all-or-nothing. What’s hilarious is that those who INSIST it’s genetic tend to scoff at the idea that intelligence can have a genetic component.

“• Capital punishment may not reduce the amount of murders”
Capital punishment is inherently hypocritical because it attempts to define what the state is doing as something besides “murder.”

“• Allowing convicted criminals to become bigger stronger criminals through the use of body building equipment while in prison is idiotic.”
As a convicted criminal who spent 28 consecutive months behind bars, from my observations, it allowed a lot of guys to work off anger and aggression without getting into fights. Then when these musclebound guys got out, I’d see them on Burnside Street in downtown Portland, skeleton-thin and wasted away on crank or crack again.

“• While Islamic culture has many faults, it appears to have the right idea when dealing with those who victimize innocents.”
Strongly disagree, not about the “many faults” part, but about the “right idea” part.

“• Drug legalization should at least be trialed. ”
In most instances, yes. I’d be more hesitant regarding highly addictive drugs. I’m much more suspect of the intoxicants that are proved to cause brain damage such as speed and alcohol. With most illegal drugs, many of the social problems they cause seem more due to their being criminalized than with their innate harmfulness. But I’d definitely make penalties for drunk driving far worse and remove the “diminished responsibility” defense for anyone who takes out a whole family in a car crash because they couldn’t handle their hooch. Every year about 4x as many people are killed in drunk-driving accidents than the total number of blacks lynched throughout American history—(I’ve seen all kinds of stats regarding both cases, and I’m rounding figures here, but go ahead and challenge them)—so I wonder why there isn’t remotely the amount of moral outrage concerning drunk driving. Unlike liberals, who count living bodies (but not dead ones) equally, I count dead bodies equally.

^^^ Hey Jim, do you reckon it’s likely – in terms of genetics – that whites are more intelligent than blacks on average?

Wow, it’s a long road from teachers’ unions to race and IQ, but here we go…

Hey Jericho, it’s not a matter of “reckoning” or “beliefs.” It’s what intelligence tests—at this point, our most reliable way to measure cognitive aptitude—demonstrate, just as they demonstrate that Jews and Asians are, on average, more intelligent than whites. If you want to argue “cultural bias” is the sole determinant of how the test results skew in terms of ethnicity, the only borderline-sensible argument would be to say they’re biased toward Asians and Jews rather than whites. But I don’t see anyone adopting that strategy.

I’ve never said that intelligence is 100 percent genetic, just as I’ve never said homosexuality is entirely genetic. My beef is with those who, against all the evidence, insist that measured intelligence is ENTIRELY the result of socioeconomic factors. That’s laughable, but since equality is their religion, they press onward with it like the fanatics they are.

The most convincing argument against the “100 percent nurture” stance that I’ve seen involves studies of twins separated at birth. Although raised in entirely different socioeconomic backgrounds, these backgrounds tend to have very little influence on how they wind up scoring on intelligence tests upon reaching adulthood.

The exceptions to what appear to be a very solid pattern are where the upper range of one group’s bell curve overlaps with the lower range of another’s. They don’t disprove or undermine the overall pattern.

It’s a topic I’ll be exhaustively researching for my race book.

If you deem yourself able to discuss this without flinging shit and imputing false motives to me, let’s have at it.

Wisconsin’s Democratic Senators, who make much more money off the taxypayers (once you add up salary, per diems, a 30K+ yearly allotment for “expenses,” and it appears they aren’t even mentioning healthcare and pensions in those numbers) than teachers do…

Anyway, I’ve heard these twins tests mentioned often, but I don’t really know the specifics. How large of a sample size could you realistically get of twins who are separated at birth and then tracked down and subjected to intelligence tests? The results sound interesting, but are these studies really substantial enough to produce a “convincing argument?”

Obviously you can’t insist that “measured intelligence is ENTIRELY the result of socioeconomic factors.” But don’t you think it’s reasonable to suggest that the socieconomic factors that have existed in America influence test results to the point where, although they’re the most reliable, they’re essentially unreliable measurements of cognitive aptitude (again, for blacks in terms of genetics)?

If you wanted to compare intelligence curves, it might be a better idea to compare America with the British Isles – where there’s a high correlation between socioeconomic status and stupidity, and the stupid section is comprised mostly of whites). I couldn’t quote any statistics off hand, but they certainly seem to function on par with American negroes. They exhibit all of the same pathologies: illiteracy, violence, aggression, unwillingness to be fathers for longer than a week, etc. I’m personally kind of terrifed of poor blacks (particularly Haitians), but the argument here seems to be more in favour of nurture.

Other than that, I don’t think there’s a sizeable enough independent black population on Earth where you make a sufficiently unbiased comparison with whites.

It’s a whole new world for the nature/nurture debates, and you should consider reading Gabor Mate’s book about addiction. It covers some of the problems with the identical twins studies.

If you don’t get deep into the implications of epigenetics, your race book is going to be really easy to poke holes in.

This is all off topic I know so:

If paying teachers higher salaries was always good for education there would be commensurate improvements in the kids performance for the pay raises. I don’t think that’s how it’s been. I’m all for making education the highest of priorities, but that means putting the kids first, not the teachers. That union has proven itself to be in favor of the teachers against the kids by preventing the firing of their incompetent co-workers, so fuck ‘em.

“@Here’s a statement from the American Anthropology Assoc. that nixes the entire notion of “race”. http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm “These facts render any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations both arbitrary and subjective.”

Well, it may “nix” it to your emotional satisfaction, but I don’t think any scientific matter—none—is ever settled for eternity.

I’ll note briefly that most of the race-deniers focus on the idea that rigid, unyielding definitions of “race” are implausible, then they proceed to throw out the entire concept. That seems to proceed with the same illogic as saying that since some men are effeminate, gender doesn’t exist.

Would you, “Oligarch-Funded, etc. Person,” admit that, say, 100 years ago, anthropology was dominated by the so-called “scientific racists” who were funded by moneyed interests and who suppressed information that ran contrary to their beliefs?

Yeah? Me, too.

I’d suggest that since the 1930s or so, the so-called “social sciences” (which are “soft” sciences at best) have been dominated by cultural Marxists with their own agendas and who also tend to harshly suppress dissent.

James Watson, one of the most brilliant scientists of our age, was silenced and publicly crucified recently for expressing his sincere belief that blacks are less intelligent. If you think we actually exist in a climate where dissenting views about race are even discussed openly much less tolerated at all, well, you see things differently than I do. Right now, the climate is as close to ideological totalitarianism as you can get.

None of what you or the AAA has said can adequately explain why these ethnic differences tend to skew the same way across the globe when things such as socioeconomic factors are controlled. Not a word. They can’t account for why Asians are (from memory) around 32 times more likely to score “genius” on IQ tests than blacks. They just attack rigid constructions of “race” and consider the matter settled.

I should also note the tendency of self-identified leftists to consistently call poor and working-class whites “retarded,” yet when you trot out our best-known way for measuring cognitive ability, they scream you’re being unfair. From I’ve seen, these “retarded” rednecks score around a standard percentile (15 points) higher than blacks in the same economic conditions. There is some debate whether the Flynn Effect is changing this. Some recent studies of black American performance on standardized tests casts doubt on the idea that the gap is being closed.

Which is it? Ask yourself honestly, because I can’t peep inside you—if these tests had shown blacks to be equally or even more intelligent than whites, would you be straining so hard to discredit them? Only you know the answer. Think about it.

@”If you wanted to compare intelligence curves, it might be a better idea to compare America with the British Isles – where there’s a high correlation between socioeconomic status and stupidity, and the stupid section is comprised mostly of whites).”

Would that have something to do with the fact that England is mostly comprised of whites? With economic factors being equal, how do these “stupid” English whites score against English blacks in the same income bracket? There’s where you’d find some meaningful results.

I’ve yet to see any study anywhere that shows parity among whites and blacks when other factors such as income are controlled. I’m not saying they don’t exist, only that I haven’t seen them. If you have some, email the links to me at jg@jimgoad.net.

I will also look into epigenetics. Thanks for the tip.

OK. It’s 1PM on Friday. I’m signing off for now and holing myself down in the basement to research and write my article about Fred Phelps. I spend every weekend writing my articles, which is why I wasn’t on this thread last weekend. If you want to keep the questions coming or any argument going, email me or post them here, and I’ll check back on Monday. How any guy on Earth can be fairer than that, I don’t know.

“Would that have something to do with the fact that England is mostly comprised of whites?”

Well that would be the whole point. You could take the American blacks and the British/Irish whites, shake them up in a box, make them write tests, and see if race is an issue. Good luck on getting that done.

“With economic factors being equal, how do these “stupid” English whites score against English blacks in the same income bracket?”

Don’t get upset, they’re quite literally “stupid.” What section of American society do these people remind you of:

whatever, I just presented the AAA document without comment. Being, like you, a champion of Enlightenment empirical standards, I ultimately hew soley to hard, quantifiable evidence, which, for purposes of social generalizing, is of course impossible to collect without proper setup of subjects vs. control groups, since of course such experiments are ethically impossible, blahbedy. Plus Flynn effect. Can’t quite fathom your emotional drive to pursue the question. Good luck with that, any genuinely scientific result is always welcome. I personally still argue for phlogiston: I don’t think it’s been quite 100% totally totally totally entirely disproved yet. Or lung cancer from cigarettes.

Anyway, good to clear one thing up: It’s Goad and R.A. shoulder-to shoulder on the central question for early 21st century America qua political entity America: WHAT PART OF INTELLIGENT PROTECTIONISM DO THE REST OF YOU PRO-GLOBALIZAZATION POOFTERS NOT UNDERSTAND???

The idea of epigenetics does turn the whole “nature-nurture” question into a recursive circle-jerk. Because it is a proven fact that environmental (cultural) factors can significantly change gene expression.
I work in a school that is 80% black, 15% hispanic and 5% white. The white kids don’t seem to outshine the others from what I can tell. Not the most scientific test, but take it for what it’s worth.

“Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes.”

The flaw in this deduction is that it is based on the idea that all genes have equal influence in the development of humans. While I am no geneticist I have found what I believe to be evidence that it only takes a variance in one gene to create a drastic difference.

For example, melanin, which can be a life or death genetic difference only requires a variation in one gene.

Well that’s the argument that’s always made. There’s miniscule genetic difference between the races, and therefore no difference at all. Pretty much jsut the stuff you can see like a Chinaman’s eyes or a Negro’s nose. On the inside, everything is exactly the same. There’s also miniscule genetic difference between mice and men (that’s Steinbeck).

you all like “Fergie” – I don’t like Fergie and it seems we have drastically different readings of historical events like the great depression. this is a first for an internet discussion so lets give ourselves a round of applause.

I have no idea why you are pimping the bailouts. Have you ever read taibi howevery ou spell it, or any of those guys. Goldman sachs are like the Koch brothers of 2008. You gotta be kidding me with this stuff.

Also as for race being a factor in IQ: isn’t easier just to credit cultural wolf mother or dragon mother or whatever amy chua is with these intellgience test scores?

You can hate blacks and worship asians just as much but you can sat “and this is because of their upbringing it has nothing to do with race” thats what I do.